


Toxicity

by trepidatingboarfetus



Category: Grand Theft Auto Series (Video Games), Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anxiety Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Cannibalism, Cannibalistic Thoughts, Child Neglect, Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Drug Addiction, F/M, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Sex, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Mental Anguish, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mental Institutions, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Child Abuse, Sex Addiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:27:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 70,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25947304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trepidatingboarfetus/pseuds/trepidatingboarfetus
Summary: Your whole life is a mess. You're always causing problems for those you love. You're seriously trying to get your act together, but you just can't help how your family and the system have managed to fuck you every step of the way, so you just meander on through, trying to figure out what to do with this husk you call a life until this breath of fresh air carries itself into your lungs by the name of Michael, and you're never the same again, you know it.An introspective look at all the times Trevor loved Michael and all the times Michael failed to love him back even if he did love him.
Relationships: Amanda De Santa/Michael De Santa, Amanda De Santa/Michael De Santa/Trevor Philips, Floyd Hebert/Trevor Philips, Franklin Clinton & Trevor Philips, Lamar Davis & Trevor Philips, Michael De Santa & Trevor Philips, Michael De Santa/Trevor Philips, Mrs. Philips/Trevor Philips, Ron Jakowski/Trevor Philips, Trevor Philips & Original Female Character(s), Trevor Philips/Original Male Character(s), Wade Hebert/Trevor Philips
Comments: 29
Kudos: 46





	1. Warning Sign (at the beginning of it all)

**Author's Note:**

> I am late to this fandom, but not to the GTA series. You see, I've been playing the games since Vice City, but I didn't have a way to play GTA 5 right away when it first came out, and I'm glad I didn't now, actually, because I am happy for this slice of the fandom for taking note of some of the neat little tidbits that Rockstar wrote into the game. They really went all out with this game, and they absolutely made me adore Trevor and Michael, but I especially feel for Trevor in such a way that it's like wanting to go back in time and rescue yourself. And since I'm about the same age as these gentlemen, grew up in the same generation, and am even apart of the misbegotten "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" disaster generation that screwed us all up, I felt like this is something I could offer insight into. Michael supposedly grew up in the Midwest like me where we stomped down any idea of being anything outside of "straight" prior to the 21st century and still have trouble anything outside of "the norm" now. Trevor's the freer spirit, anything goes. Amanda is just the poor person who wound up in the way. But you'll see it all. This is just my take on how I think things may have played out. I know there are plenty of them, so one more won't hurt. :-)
> 
> This whole thing actually was written with Warning Sign by Coldplay in mind. Don't ask me why.

Toxic people surround you everywhere in life. From the moment you’re at your mom’s tit too long to the time your dad is twisting your wrist hard for crying too much for just some stupid baby fall and then leaving you behind to the day your older brother is making girly squeaks and what he thinks are fairy noises because maybe you want to be a pretty princess for Halloween just once because Mom has no daughters, and you want to ease the pain of her bruises and the pain in her heart, but then there’s school with every girl your poor mother wishes you’d just bring home and be normal, but those girls are fine with fucking the bad boy behind the bleachers but not with bringing you home to meet the parents, and you don’t really care about them anyway, because you know in the deepest deepest _deepest_ recesses of your soul that girls are pretty but won’t be the love you so desperately crave, and no one around here is ready for that or at least are enough to cast a flare to the sky, so you’re miserable, and there’s nothing to do now that you’re out of the first system that life shoves your ass into, so why not join the RCAF because planes are exciting and sexy and holy _shit_ , when you’re in the air, there’s such a rush of either you fly or you kiss death, and it’s probably the most alive you’ve felt since your dad left...that is until you meet an honest to fuck lieutenant commander from the holy fucking SHIT Snowbirds, and he’s nice to you in a way you’ve never been accustomed to, almost to the point you find yourself wondering if this is what it’s like when a guy is actually flirting with you, and you keep wondering it all the way up until he shoves his cock deep down your throat almost to the point of where you can’t breathe, and you want to cry, but part of you deep down also feels like you deserve this, so you just keep going and going until you let him do whatever he wants because he’s who he is, you’re who you are, and no one’s going to give a fuck about you over him anyway, and you’re crying yourself to sleep at night because you know you’re just being used by another person who’s never loved you, and WHAT the fuck is wrong with you that everyone hates you so much, and you keep wondering that as your life hits a downward spiral, and just as suddenly as everyone was patting you on the back and calling you the best pilot they’d seen in years, they are just as suddenly booting you out the door into the cold, so now you have to figure out your life again, and thank fuck for the punk rock scene or you’d probably be hanging yourself right now instead of just contemplating it sometimes while renting yourself out as an independent pilot for hire because that music is your goddamn life’s blood just as much as any weed or booze or speed, and dammit you’ve had way too much downtime so here you are contemplating it again because Mom’s not taking your calls for whatever reason, and you don’t know where your brother fucked off to, but you’re sure it’s wherever your dad fucked off to years before, so you’re all she has left SO WHY WON’T SHE PICK UP THE PHONE THAT UNGRATEFUL BITCH, MOMMY DON’T YOU KNOW YOUR BABY BOY LOVES YOU--

And then you hear it before you see it.

A car coming quickly over the hill being chased by a truck, and you curse. This must be the mysterious M guy you’re supposed to fly over the border, but you weren’t told about any goddamn psycho tailers, and you’re not ready for that. 

And you’re especially not ready for what comes out of the car when it comes to a halt on the strip because you swear this is the shit you would hear your mother go on about with her soaps and romance novellas when you were a kid. This is fireworks going off at sunset, heart in your throat, butterflies in your stomach, stars exploding in the sky kind of shit. He is gorgeous and looks dangerously close to your age, and you aren’t ready for that at all. Why does this have to be so hard? Why do you have to be so hard already? What the hell is wrong with you, you fucking pervert?

And all he has to say in that silky deep twang of his -- where the fuck is that from, does it matter -- is, “I take it you’re T, my wingman?”

And you’ve never fucking stuttered much in your goddamn life except in certain situations, and this is, unfortunately, one of them, so you try to bite the inside of your cheek to hide it a bit while you put on a false bravado and a half-assed salute with a little “Y-yeah, but who’s the c-c-cocksucking tagalong who followed you?”

He dismisses him off with a wave but frowns as he looks like he’s trying to figure out what to do with the old fart, and the creases in his brow and the slight way he grimaces while in thought you think are so damn hot and adorable that you find yourself willing to do anything for this guy. He could ask for the fucking moon on a silver platter, and you’d hand it over. So you really don’t even give it much thought as the tub of lard gets out of his truck screaming about how this was supposed to be his job and kids these days, and you think M is trying to reason with him but also not giving half a shit, and the flare is in that guy’s left eye before you even think much about firing it from the gun. You had just wanted him to shut up. You’ve never killed anybody. Jesus, you’ve thought about it, but you’ve never done it, and here you are doing it, and that lady who wrote you off as too volatile for the RCAF was right this whole time Jesus Christ, and M is in shock-- 

But then he’s actually not because he’s laughing and clapping you on the back and going over the details of what a flare gun wound through the eye looks like and have you done this shit before because that is fucking awesome, and he’s looking at you like you’re something so damn special, and you...you just don’t know what to do, you don’t know how to feel, so you find yourself just wanting to be what he wants you to be so he’ll keep smiling at you in that cute not-quite-grown-but-not-quite-boyish way, half a sliver of a smile and half-lidded glaze of eyes, and soon after you dump the body into water -- but not before you’ve vomited all over your combat boots -- you’re bullshitting your way into the skies, pretending you weren’t abused by some fuck in the RCAF even though some of that old familiar feeling is worming its way back into this new one, and you keep promising yourself that this isn’t the same DAMN IT STOP, and then your breath catches because his hand is grazing the thigh of your jeans.

“Michael.” 

You don’t even need to be told it’s his actual name because it’s like a choir of fucking angels exploded In Excelsis Deo in your ears, but you play dumb anyway. “How’s that?”

“I know we’re going by this “first initial only” basis shit because of this run, but you killed for me, so I figured it was alright enough to tell you my name if that’s cool.” 

If that’s cool? Oh buddy, oh _sweet daddy_ , that is more than cool. You lick your lips as if you’ve been parched since birth, and Michael is the goddamn freshwater lake you’ve been waiting to dive into all your young life. “T-t-trevor. Name’s Trevor. And it’s more than cool. You’re cool.” You stop yourself with a hiss because you’re acting like a fucking fairy again, your mom and brother would say if they could hear you now, and you’re going to run him the fuck off just like everyone else in your miserable ass life, so you take a breath and try to start again. “What I m-m-meant was--”

But he laughs it off in such a way that you’re not sure if he’s uncomfortable or if he’s trying to make you more comfortable until you think with a sigh of relief that it’s the latter. “Nah, it’s cool, man. I get that a lot, actually. I used to be a big deal in my hometown.” And for most of the flight, Michael regales you with stories of coming from a small town and being a quarterback hero with dreams of going to a big university on a scholarship until he ended his career finally with a torn ACL on top of already riding the bench injury-plagued and for his letting his temper get the best of him at times, and at first, he sounds nostalgic in that annoying way all jocks do when they’re crying over their shriveled dicks about their long-gone glory days, but then he sniffles, and the tone changes to something more familiar and bittersweet, something you understand all too well, about growing up trailer trash with abusive parents who care more about their booze than they do you or they use you for something they need, but you’re just never enough, and you don’t understand why the fuck you can’t just be loved as you are.

And before you know it, the mission is completed, and you’re never going to see this beautiful man again, and it’s literally squeezing the life out of your heart. You’ve felt a lot of things in your life: physical pain, abandonment, rage, emotional hurt, sadness -- but you’re not sure you’ve ever experienced panic and fear like this or despair. Like the movie is going to end when Michael walks away, it’s over, that’s it, and you cease to exist. 

But when you’re looking hesitantly at each other, you see something in his eyes you’ve never seen in anyone else’s, and it’s only been how many hours? But you’ve fallen for him. You’ve fallen for him, and you’re scared to give your heart to anyone. A small part of you that isn’t all edge and FUCK THE SYSTEM, who’s still that pretty princess who wanted a prince wants to believe that maybe it’s safe. Michael feels right and like he could never hurt you like others have.

“Do you want to go somewhere and grab a bite to eat? I ain’t got nothin’ to do till this guy L I know gets in touch with me.” He suddenly smiles at you and places an arm around your shoulder, and you struggle with yourself to not feel weirded out because this has never been a good feeling in the past for you, so you tell yourself it’s Michael, it’s Michael, DAMMIT IT’S MICHAEL. “‘Sides, you’re a helluva a pilot, and maybe you’d like some work? I think I’d like working with ya.” And he winks at you.

Oh good God fuck, he _winks_ at you. And you’re fumbling all over yourself wondering if this is flirting or if you’re fucking misjudging this because you’re a perverted piece of shit like everyone thinks you are, but when you peek up at him, he has this cocky grin plastered to his face, and you’re sure he’s used to having his way with anyone he wants, so why the fuck wouldn’t you be another conquest? And you hate yourself for thinking it, but maybe you owe it to yourself to just have some fun for once. It’s not like anyone’s ever going to love you anyway. 

God knows you’re a horny boy, have been for long enough, and Michael is doing something to you. Your cock hasn’t moved this much since RCAF, and it really didn’t move much then, you admit to yourself. You were infatuated with Mister Cock Commander’s position, but he wasn’t easy on the eye, and you know by now that it was more about punishing yourself. You don’t like admitting it out loud yet, but you can at least admit it in your head that you may have a bit of a complex thanks to your parents, that the therapist wasn’t wrong about that, and you definitely have a streak for being a freak, and so did Mister Cock Commander. He loved ordering you around like his little boy, and you loved it because you’re a sick motherfucker who will never have your dad’s love. You’re not stupid, you just don’t like thinking about it unless it serves a purpose, and that purpose usually comes at the end of achieving an amazing fucking orgasm. 

So you suck up every bit of anxiety within you and try to act like you aren’t a nervous numbnuts when you answer, “I could go for that. I need a change of scenery. Canada has gotten on my last fucking nerves, and I just want to have fun and make some cash while doing it.” Then you hesitantly put an arm around him, and it takes literally all over your willpower not to fucking puke because this doesn’t come easy to you, this act. “And I think I like you, M.” His eyes sparkle in the setting light, and it’s so damn gorgeous that it makes the nausea worth it. 

* * *

Your friendship grows quickly thanks to meeting Lester, who you jokingly call the molester much to his chagrin, and establishing a camaraderie that comes almost freakishly natural between the three of you as if you were all meant to meet each other. Lester insists that fate is bullshit because he’s all logic and no romance, but in the short time you’ve known Michael, you know he’s a romantic at heart even if he has trouble expressing it because he was built and raised upon that tough-guy machismo just like you. You’ve actually started gaining a bit of self-esteem thanks to these missions and thanks to these guys, but at night, your heart still aches for Michael in a way you have no way of explaining. You’ve only seen him with a few women so far, mostly bar trash or hookers for a quickie to get off, and you two share a knowing grin, but even though you know you could do the same thing -- and God knows you’re thinking about it sometimes -- it just doesn’t feel right. You feel like you’re cheating even though you have no one to even fucking cheat on at this point. 

There are times you feel like he’s flirting with you, but as you get to know him better, you realize he has a certain natural charm that comes to him that maybe he can’t help, who the fuck knows, and yes, he does use it to his advantage too goddamn much sometimes, but you aren’t sure if he’s actually flirting or it’s just that natural part of him being friendly. And you don’t know what to do with yourself or how to go about asking him because this is unknown territory and FUCK IT nothing EVER ends well.

You two have been cooped up for weeks on end to lay low after a particularly long haul that left you all with quite a bit of cash after Lester sorted things out. You really don’t give a shit about the money as much as you are itching to get the fuck out and do something, any damn thing at all, and with this much cash, you have enough to do blow until your heart explodes if you want, and really, it’s kind of what you want right now. You’re tired. Done with running away from yourself, done with ignoring your pain, done with living a lie. You’re older now and no longer living in Shitsville, Canada, getting the shit beat out of you by your brother and his friends for being the slightest bit outside of the norm. No one’s laughing at you now while you walk down the hallways, and fuck them if they are. You just want to have fun and live and fuck and love anyone you want to love, and dammit, you want to love Michael.

Why can’t you just tell him that?

Your right leg is shaking so much, he notices and puts down the deck of cards he’s been shuffling on repeat for the last fifteen minutes after you both grew tired of playing blackjack about an hour ago. “It’s late.” He points to the clock on the wall like you haven’t noticed. “Want to get some fresh air and go somewhere? Should be OK to go. I got the all-clear yesterday.”

“What the fuck?” Your leg has become an uncontrollable bounce of rage now knowing you could’ve been out of here and doing something to end your misery before now instead of being forced to stare into his eyes and laugh at his fucking terrible jokes that still make you laugh for some stupid reason, and you have this itch you just can’t scratch that you need to get rid of. It’s gnawing at you like a fly you can’t smack away, driving you nuts. You just want to run away so much, dammit. “Why didn’t you say something before now, M? Why the hell are we still here and not at the bar? I should be watching your lame-ass attempts at getting a little titty right now while sucking down cheap beer.”

He takes your hand in his, and all you can do is focus on how warm it is, how soft his skin somehow is despite there still being the signs of roughness already in his youth from having to do some heavy work. You want to feel those hands all over you, but you push that away into the back of your head as he laughs wickedly like you both share some naughty secret. “One, there ain’t no attempts at nothing. I’ll have someone’s nipple in my mouth by the end of the night. Two, we have enough money to buy the good shit, so there’s no such thing as ‘cheap beer’ tonight, ya dipshit Canuck.”

“Hey hey hey! You racist! You know I don’t like that shit!”

But he takes your attention quickly from that by sliding a hand down your cheek and smirking. “And three, are you sayin’ my company wasn’t enjoyable?” He shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I didn’t say anything sooner. I was just having fun.” 

You gulp but pretend to sulk. You know that was meant in a “best friends” way, but man, if that doesn’t get your heart thumping like the fucking rabbit in that Disney flick with the deer and his dead mom-- 

And you’ve fucking done it to yourself again. Why the fuck do you think about her. Why. She barely answers your calls, half the time she’s in the joint for something, and when she is about, it’s to yell at you about how you didn’t turn out the way she wanted, so why the fuck do you do this to yourself?

“Hey, Trev? You OK?”

You still haven’t gotten used to him calling you that yet. It feels like a pet name, but he’s big on nicknames, and you know it’s not even an American thing, it’s just your damn dysfunctional family wasn’t big on that whole sort of thing, so it feels personal, and it makes your heart flutter every time he says it. You take a ragged breath and try your best to put on a fake smile, but your heart really isn’t in it tonight, so you sigh. You opt for some truth because why not? Fuck it, he’s earned some. He’s told you some of his bullshit childhood, why shouldn’t you unload? You love him. You can do this. “It’s just baggage, man. I need some booze, maybe some blow, and I need to unwind. I need to get laid. I haven’t gotten laid since my days in the Force.”

Michael lets out a low whistle and shakes his head. “Damn, buddy. That’s a while. Why didn’t you say something? We need to find you some tail. That’s way too long to go without!” You both order beer, you opting for Moosehead while glaring at him because he usually dares to make some sort of stupid-ass remark, but tonight he’s actually being cordial. You almost want to go for whiskey too, but it gives you whiskey dick way too much sometimes, and if you end up having to have a quickie with some random hooker, you at least want to be able to get off. Or something out of it. “I’d probably off myself if I had to go too long without getting some action, Jesus,” Michael laughs to the side of you.

“Yeah, well that’s the difference between you and me, Michael. I’m a little fucked up in case you haven’t noticed yet.” You take a long sip, and damn, Michael is right, but you’ll never tell it to his face. Moosehead is fucking TERRIBLE, but it’s a pride thing. It’s one of the few things you feel like you have left connecting you to your childhood. “I got sidetracked thinking about my m-m-mother too. Never a good thing.”

“You’ve never told me much about you.”

You polish off the rest of that and begin another one for courage because, holy fuck, are you going to need it. And it all comes out. Your dad’s abuse of everyone. How your mom was once a wonderful person, but your father drove her to insanity, prostitution, and drugs, and she eventually became mean. How the asshole eventually abandoned all of you, but you, especially, one day at a mall, and you had never felt so much sadness and rage engulf you before like a hurricane, and you were the eye in the storm as you burnt down the mall because it was a reminder of him and the loss of him, and you just couldn’t take it anymore. How your brother grew meaner as the years went on and became more and more like your old man, and eventually, he took to beating your mom and you, and both took turns beating on you for not being normal.

“How can you blame yourself? You were just a kid.”

You’ve lost count at how many beers you’ve had at this point, and maybe you’re rambling on a bit. Liquid courage, right? Isn’t that what they say? Say what you mean when you're drunk? Your face feels flushed, and you’re not sure if that’s from the beer or from Michael being too close. A giggle bubbles to the surface, and you’re not sure why the fuck alcohol makes you act more girly. “Oh poor, stupid Michael. You just don’t get it. They blamed me. They still blame me. I blame me. Everyone blames me. I’m NOT normal. I was the quote-unquote ‘best pilot’ the academy had seen in ages, and they were talking about training me -- ME, can you believe it -- to be one of the infamous Snowbirds, so they had me talking to one of the lieutenant commanders.” You take another long gulp, trying to dredge up a name you’ve long tried to forget along with memories you’ve buried. “An g-g-guy in his f-f-f-forties by the name of Norton. Roger Norton. I called him M-mister C-c-c-cock C-commander--”

Michael bursts out laughing, and you pause and smile, sadly to yourself because even though that name is fucking hilarious or it should be, it’s also still a name that haunts you yet. After the laughter dies down, he looks to you for an explanation of the joke, but you shake your head. “I don’t get it, Trev. Why the hell--”

“Because he made me, Michael.” There’s no anger in your voice, you realize, only sadness at this point. “I was an idiot. I’d never had a real relationship yet. I thought he l-loved me.” Tears threaten to spill, but you suck those fuckers in faster than they can think about forming. “I just wanted to be l-l-loved, but he just abused me like everyone else in my fucked up life has done.”

Michael looks you up and down before he gulps the rest of his Coors down. “Christ.”

Sweat is starting to drip down the back of your neck. Was this a fucking mistake? Is Michael not safe? Were you wrong? Were those signs always just friendly? Was he always just trying to be a friend? Was charm just in his nature? Jesus, why do you need to puke so badly? “M-m-michael, please. Please don’t go. I know there’s something fucking wrong with me, OK? I’m sorry I get off on guys and chicks, OK, but I think I like guys more--”

“Why would I go somewhere?”

Your heart slams against your rib-cage like a bird in its death throes, and you look at him foolishly, wondering if you heard him wrong as you scratch your chin. “I just said that--”

“I know what you said.” He looks you in the eyes as he clasps your hands, and you feel like you could drown in those violent oceans of blue. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere. We’re in this together, right? I like you.” He looks around the bar and then back at you as he whispers, “And I...I mean I’m cool with that too. Just because you’ve seen me with girls don’t mean shit.”

You seriously don’t know what to fucking say, but you’re damn sure your face isn’t red from the fucking Moosehead now as you say, “So, uh, about needing to get off.”

A hand rubs your jeans, ever so deliciously close to your cock, from under the table, and a lazy smile graces his face. Fuck, is this really happening? “I think we can figure that out.” As you leave, he whispers in your ear, “I told you I’d have someone’s nipple in my mouth before the night was over.” Your feet forget how to walk as they stumble over each other, and you choke slightly. He watches you the whole time, waiting to see if he needs to catch you but also laughing at you as he’s caught you off-guard. Goddamn him.

* * *

You’re a mess of limbs and clothes and lips when you suddenly blurt out, “I’m still a fuck up.”

He shrugs the rest of the way out of his shirt and rolls his eyes. “T, what the fuck are you going on about? I thought we’d gotten past all that.” He runs his fingers through your mullet which has gotten slightly long at this point -- Mom did always want a girl, after all -- and inhales you like he’s trying to memorize your smell. “Relax and have fun, baby.”

You’re almost afraid to sound like some needy fucking kid, but you can’t help it. Commander Asshole, your dad, your brother, everyone took turns fucking you up, and you need it. You don’t know why you have this need, but it’s there, and you feel like maybe Michael will get it. If he can understand all of your other pieces, he’ll understand this other piece. “I need some stuff, ya know, to help ‘rev the Trev,’ so to speak.”

Michael’s eyes light up a little, and you think he understands, but you groan when he lists all of the wrong shit. You say no to porn, to coke, to crystal meth, and as he gets to handcuffs, you cough but shake your head. “So what the fuck is it, Trevor? You want to send me a smoke signal because I’m runnin’ outta ideas here.”

Your voice is barely a whisper. Jesus, this is hard. You knew it wouldn’t be easy the first time you found someone, but holy shit, you didn’t think it would be like this. How the hell do you get over the embarrassment of telling someone that you like to be degraded? Or that you might have a daddy complex? Or that you definitely like reversing roles, but you prefer to be the girl? 

Why the everloving fuck does this have to be so difficult? 

He flutters kisses like butterflies down your neck and left shoulder before he stops and looks up at you. “It’s OK, Trev. It’s just me. I’m not gonna laugh. We’re just having fun, just releasing stress. Tell me what you need.”

Will he laugh if you tell him you need him to love you?

You bite that back and relax into his kisses. “I n-need h-h-humiliation. I have a d-d-daddy c-complex, sorta.” You close your eyes and think back to when you first met him, to the first time you held hands, fantasizing about his rough touch on your body. The amount of booze in your system and the fact you can’t see his reaction give you the courage you need to tell him, “You’re the most gorgeous guy who’s ever cared to actually talk to me about more than work for more than thirty minutes. I’ve dreamed about you fucking me raw and making me yours until I can’t walk or talk, sugar tits.”

The kisses stop suddenly, and you peer up to see him staring down at you with a weird expression in his eyes. It’s like he wants to laugh at you, but he’s trying hard not to, so you laugh for him to break the tension even though you feel stupid now. 

“Sorry,” you giggle hastily as you reach out to touch what’s left of his former pecs. “I love your titties, sugar. They’re the best.”

Suddenly you’re falling into the dingy sheets and pillows as lips cling to your left nipple, and a hand reaches out to play with your right one. No one’s EVER bothered to do this, and it feels soooooo fucking great, like you’re trying to not shoot your load now. Fuck, you’re not a virgin, and you’ve been waiting for this! The last thing you need is your body fucking things up! Think of your PE teacher from high school, think of your grammar school teacher who was bigger than a house, think of your dad--

OH WAIT NO DON’T!

“So what do you mean by a dad complex? Like you like older men? Or you just like calling guys Daddy and having them spank you in general?” Michael says in between mouthfuls of nipple.

Your cock has probably never been as hard as it is now, with the heavens as your witness. Oh my God. “U-u-uh t-t-t-the l-l-last o-o-o-one.”

The hand that was idly playing with your right nipple is now slowly unzipping your jeans and giving you freedom at last. “You’re going to have to repeat yourself, Trevor, if you want Daddy to understand all of that shit. How the hell am I supposed to make sense of that, young man?”

Oh Jesus God. You can’t lick your lips enough to ever feel dry again. What the fuck is this man doing to you to unravel you like this? He has you, he has you now, and he has to know it. You’re his, and you’re his forever. You have to really concentrate, something you haven’t had to do in a few years, to get past the stuttering from your nerves just so you can deliver an answer. “I m-mean the last one, D-daddy!” His soft yet calloused conundrum hands pluck aside your underwear to grasp your foreskin, and you nearly jump from the bed. “Oh sweet Jesus, Mikey!”

You’ve heard him laugh big hearty laughs and snide smirk sarcastic suckers, but you’ve never heard him giggle before today. With a gleam in his eye either. He’s fucking ecstatic as he has you in his grip. “Is that an honest to God nickname, Trev? And now of all times?”

Oh fuck him and his gorgeous face you want to ride in on. “I...It’s always been there, you asshole! I just never had a reason to use it.”

He gives you a few experimental strokes that have you damn near jumping out of your skin and suckles from your nipple a few more times before he comes up for air and flashes one of those charming sexy grins of his, meant to be a “panty dropper,” and mumbles, “Oh, I’ll give you more reasons to use it in the future, but let’s stick to Daddy for tonight.” Then he playfully smacks you square on the ass.

And as you officially come together as one for the night, it’s everything you thought it would be and more. Part of you wonders briefly if the world is ending. How the fuck did you get so lucky? You feel like you’ve gone to Heaven, and you can’t stop the stupid smile plastered on your face as he pounds your ass and calls your name. Jesus Christ, you really envy every person he’s ever fucked because he is literally a machine with a magnificent, thick cock which is hitting you in every spot you need it to hit. And you’re close, and you know he’s close by the way he’s huffing and puffing, and you really can’t stop yourself in the heat of the moment as it just slips from your mouth: “Ah God, fucking fill me up, Mikey! I love you so much!”

He tugs your hair which is a nice surprise and pulls you close to him as he thrusts harder. “Here it comes, baby.” Now there’s something missing here, and you know it, but you’re so blinded by love and by the freshness of the best orgasm of your young adult life that it’s just not reaching you yet. What the fuck is it?

He grunts, comes, kisses you gently on the cheek, and throws on some jeans to have a cigarette outside. 

The wind from beyond the door hits you like a brick wall, and you can barely stop the gag that wants to barrel its way out your throat. _There’s_ the other shoe you were waiting for to fall. It’s Cock Commander all over again to you, and you want to rage, but you’re so burnt out that all you can do is a strangled cry. How could he do it after you told him -- HOW COULD HE?

You pretend to go to sleep and end up losing track of the time, so you aren’t even sure of how long it is before he finally comes back in and slides in bed next to you. “I said I love you, Mikey.”

You feel the body next to you stiffen a bit, but then he relaxes and turns onto his back, sliding away from you. “I know, Trev. I hear ya. Let’s get some sleep, man.”

And the tears come easily now. They’re your song that sings you to sleep just as they always have.

What the fuck is wrong with you, Trevor? What the fuck is so wrong with you that no one wants to love you?


	2. I'm in the Lights with Him (Late 89)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written to Pandora by Cocteau Twins with this https://thenoman-sland.tumblr.com/post/618847584148242432/michael-bought-ts-first-dress picture as a reference for the trip and dress. <3

It’s become an easy flow of blowing and fucking, sometimes while snorting lines of blow off each other, having races just to see who can get off the quickest, the best, the most because you’re still guys at the end of the day, and you admit you’re having fun because hey, it’s Mikey, and you can’t NOT have fun around him. He’s that fucking song, easy like Sunday morning, full of sunshine and parties and ready to go when he’s not in a mood, so you like being around him, but the hurt is still there. You can’t lie to yourself, but at least you don’t have to lie about who you are or what you are anymore, and that is at least starting to feel somewhat refreshing. 

But you feel like Michael is still uneasy about the two of you. He’s giggles and rainbows when it’s just you and him until the “l” word comes out, so you try to keep that under wraps, but you can’t _help_ it, dammit, it’s just love. You’d think you were twisting a fucking knife in his gut or maybe he’d be happier if you were doing that, who knows, but either way, something is just off. He’s all normal buddy-buddy comedy routine when you’re around everyone else -- although you’re sure Lester has half a clue or has to, at least -- and when it’s just you and him, you’d swear he could love you. You’re almost positive he loves you back. What the fuck is the deal?

You’ve been relying more and more on the crank you’ve been getting from the guy on the street corner. You don’t really want to hit the horse because you’ve seen where it can lead people like Ryan and your mom, for starters, and crank is basically just extra speed, so that’s not so bad, you just keep having to tell yourself till you believe it because the weed doesn’t do much for your anxiety anymore, and doing lines of blow is all right, but at the rate you really want to do it, your nose is going to fall right the fuck off, so this is better. You need a fix, something to stop you from wanting to crawl out of your skin whenever Michael is around. Unrealistic fantasies keep coming into your head, and there’s no point to them because you’re a fucking guy, and he’s a guy, and you’re never going to be tied down to the system, and he’s already said he’s not the marrying or kid type. The dreams come easily to you in your sleep though, and sometimes you wish you could be the fucking daughter your mom actually wanted and the girl Mikey actually wants so you could be someone who’s wanted.

Oh God, Trev, baby. Don’t cry at yourself in the mirror, you miserable sack of shit. Get it together, hit this pipe, feel that burn, let it all float away.

“What the fuck are you doing? That shit will ruin you.”

Your head pops up so quickly that a long line of snot and tears mix together, and you’re chuckling oddly as you’re not sure which is which or if you care anymore. “Oh? Will it ruin me any worse than drinking all this shit will ruin my liver? Or snorting all these lines of coke will eat the lining of my nose or explode my fucking heart will? Or smoking your damn cancer sticks? Or eating bullshit fast food? Or letting you fuck me after you fuck everyone else when you know damn well what all I could catch?” You stare him pointedly in the eyes at that last one. Good, let his asshole sweat.

“You? What about me? You could do the same thing to me! Quit playing the fucking victim for once in your life, T.”

Oh, that is fucking RICH. You haven’t touched a goddamn soul in who knows how long because you can’t. It’s all about him him HIM for you even when you’re so fucking mad you can’t even see straight, and here he is bitching at you about playing the victim! Well, he can learn to stroke his prostate the way he likes or die finding someone else to do it because holy fucking shit all if you’re going to do it for him! Tonight! At least for a few hours!

You turn away from him, a mix of anger, snot, tears, and stray hiccups while you try to finish the rest of what’s in your pipe, but you feel warm arms around you and a kiss at the junction of your neck and jawline, tickling the skin and hair there. “C’mon, Trev. Let’s not fight, baby. I’m just concerned, is all. The more you do that shit, the more you aren’t fun to be around.”

At first, you feel bad about that, but then you remember why you really aren’t fun to be around and why you’re needing to escape more and more in the first place, and you loudly sigh, “Gee, Mikey, maybe I wouldn’t be a bitch so much or need this so much if I weren’t so fucking damned _depressed_ , you know??” You look up in the mirror and can see the guilt in his face, maybe even a smidgen of his own depression, and you start to feel worse. “Look, I...I’m sorry, OK? I just don’t understand a lot of stuff, and I don’t mean to take shit out on people, but I do. I’m just a dumb fuck up, in the end, I guess.”

Stubble nuzzles your cheek. “You’re not a fuck up.”

Your mind is fuzzy, but it also feels like you’re the clearest you’ve ever felt, and you can see everything, how the universe was made, why things are the way they are, and you kiss him gently like the way you’ve seen girls kiss their lovers in the movies. “You’ll never love me, will you, Michael?”

He holds you tighter but shivers slightly. “Trevor, do we have to do this?”

You put your index finger to his lips or at least try and miss, hitting his left cheek instead, and you laugh while he’s still stuck as one big ball of mortification. Yes, you can see it so clearly now. You know what this is. “Shh, shh, Mikey. I get it, you don’t have to--”

“No, you don’t!” he yells and jumps up suddenly. You let the bed catch your fall as he paces around the room like a tiger about to strike. Jesus, why is it so hot at a time like this? “You don’t get it! It’s easy for you! You don’t give a fuck about anyone or anything, so you don’t care what people think about you, but I do when I go out there, T! Maybe shit ended in different ways for us, OK? Where I come from, this is what buds do in the locker rooms for fun before they go out with their girlfriends. We didn’t go out with each other, we didn’t tell each other the fucking...the y-y-you know--”

“Love, Mikey.”

“That word!” He points at you and rips at his hair in frustration. “Christ, Trev, I don’t know what to say to make you feel better, to stop this shit!” He looks at you, and his eyes are the bluest you’ve seen them in a while, and you realize it’s because he’s close to crying, so you hang your head in shame. Fuck, you didn’t want all of this. “T...I’ve never been in love with anyone, really, besides trying to make my old man proud and make my mom love me. My football career was my girlfriend, and look where the fuck that went,” he snorts. “Y-y-you’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a real best friend, to a brother, and to someone I l-l-love.” He closes his eyes. “I don’t want to ruin it. I don’t want it to end.”

You clasp your hands in his and marvel at how big they are in comparison. You wonder if he’s even noticed you’ve painted your nails, but he doesn’t usually notice bullshit like that anyway. The world could be on fire, but his ass would be in front of the TV or in a movie theater for certain games or certain directors. It’s endearing, but also a little fucking crazy. “So don’t let it end. We can go on forever, you know.”

“Has to end sometime, Trev. We both get older, get married, have kids.”

You don’t even know why you smile. “And we can stay young and die, no marriage, no nothing. We party and leave a somewhat beautiful corpse.”

You’ve at least put the twinkle back in his eyes as he laughs and ruffles your hair. “You know it ain’t that easy.”

“So you love me, but you can’t love me the way I want you to love me?” You smile sadly. There’s that knife twisting slowly in your gut again, spilling your love onto the already congealed carpet. 

He nods just as sadly. “We’re like best buds with strings attached, you could say. Till the end of time.”

Your ears perk up. “Till the end of time? Did I hear that right? Even if marriage comes into the picture, there’ll still be a ‘you and me against the world’ until we’re old geezers and shittin’ the hospital bed as we’re fucking?”

Michael rolls his eyes toward the ceiling and shakes his head. “Well, hopefully not like that, but while the wives are off shopping, we’ll be off on business, sure.”

And it’s suddenly your turn to roll your eyes. “Fuck marriage. I’m OK with fucking a hole for pleasure, you know, but marriage is a goddamn institution, and you _know_ that.”

“Yeah, but isn’t everything?”

You open your mouth to debate, but then close it. Well fuck, he actually DOES listen when you speak. Fuck him. “Touché,” you bitch as you snuggle closer to him. You think you can live with this arrangement as long as Michael is involved. Fuck, you can share as long as you get to keep on loving him at the end of the day. Times are changing, people are getting hip to this shit. There’s got to be someone out there for this arrangement to work that makes everyone happy.

But deep down, you still aren’t really happy, and you’re kidding yourself. Before the energy drain from using too much -- dammit man, you still aren’t used to this shit -- takes you to Lala Land for the night, you wrap yourself up in the comforting smells of Old Spice, motel mint toothpaste, Irish Spring, and Michael and whisper shyly, “I wish I could’ve been born your girl, Mikey.”

A hand lovingly strokes your hair. “Sometimes me too.”

* * *

You’ve barely got the fucking crust removed from your eyes as a shopping bag is being thrust at you, and Michael’s roundish cheeks are hovering in your line of sight, along with the sunny mood that’s returned to his pleasant face, and you stretch. Jesus, you think you’d rather smoke him as a drug and mutter just as much because he chuckles back. “That can be arranged, but we got places to go, so c’mon. Get your ass outta bed.”

A yawn roars from your mouth before you can catch it, and you try to drag yourself out of the sheets and work on getting some sort of coffee in your body so you can function. What the fuck time is it, and why the fuck is this asshole even up for? What does he mean that you have places to go? “Whu tha fuck talkin’ bout’, M,” you manage to string into words as you thank whoever the fuck upstairs or downstairs that he was nice enough to make your coffee before he decided to yank your ass out of precious sleep.

Michael lights up a Redwood, waving his smoke out the cracked motel door. “We have something to pick up for a friend of L’s in Van Columbia, and since we’re getting paid for this little trip, maybe you’d like some fun? Been a while since you’ve been back that way, right?”

Van Columbia. Holy Christ. You know what trailer park, what schools, what burned memories lay there down the road just a way. You’re sick with anticipation to see if your mother is even around or if she’s been picked up yet again, but you’re also sick with anxiety at the thought of going back. You’re not sure what to answer, what to do with yourself, so you peek into the bag Michael brought you. “What the fuck is in this thing?”

He coughs into his hand and mumbles something about you saying some shit while you were apparently pretty fucking high as balls before you went to sleep. You have GOT to stop that shit. You scratch your head trying to remember what the fuck you said, and all you can recall are jumbled patches of conversations about being friends forever and wanting to be a girl. You dive into the bag like a kid on Christmas getting a goddamn Nintendo, and sure enough, it’s the most beautiful lacy, frilly sundress you’ve ever seen, and you didn’t realize Michael even had good taste in clothes. 

“I hope you don’t think it’s weird, T. I...I saw it, and I just thought…,” he quietly trails off, not quite knowing how to finish.

You hold it to your chest and look at yourself in the mirror, feeling the strangest _something_ you’ve ever felt in your life. You feel like you’re finally coming home, but you also feel a little nervous too, like once you do this, there’s no going back, but when you see Michael’s face, and he’s gazing at you softly with something close to awe in his eyes, you realize there never was any going back. 

And you nearly cry when you see it’s the same pale shade of green you’d painted your nails so he noticed, he fucking NOTICED, and you’ve never known that your heart could be this close to a heart attack without actually dying. Everything’s fucking _perfect_.

“I l-love it, Mikey. I’m going to go get cleaned up so I can put it on.” 

You start stripping off clothes with the door open, not really giving two shits who can see what, and he closes the door in exasperation. “Jesus, Trevor! There are people out there who aren’t asking for free shows! And, uh...baby, you know you don’t have to wear that the whole time, right? Just when it’s you and me.”

Maybe you can blame the dress later for channeling your “inner PMS” or some shit later on, but the way he says that burns a hole in your ass along with your heart, and you’re definitely not putting up with this shit anymore. You extend your middle finger, flash it at his face, and then poke it at his chest. “Michael. I have always been about fucking the system any way I can. I am all about nonconformity. Clothes are clothes, they cover your naughty bits. If I want to wear something because I like it, and it makes me feel good, I don’t give a fuck who it’s supposed to actually be tailored to, I’m going to fucking wear it. Or am I supposed to listen to what the patriarchy tells me to do? Huh, Michael?” Michael hesitantly shakes his head as if he’s unsure of what the fucking answer is supposed to be, and you sneer victoriously. “I thought so. I am wearing this fucking dress. Or any fucking thing I want to. When I want to. Do you have a problem with that?”

He groans but concedes. “No, of course not. Les might have a cow about this a bit, but we’ll deal with that if it happens.” He sighs but lets out a small laugh. “Fuck ‘em.”

You grin at him as you step in the shower. “Fuck ‘em.”

You’re sure he’s probably wolfed down two packs of Redwoods while you’ve rubbed one out in the shower after shampooing the fuck out of every orifice you own because you want to smell good. You’ve even managed to pilfer a few ladies magazines from the motel lobby so you can get the perfume inserts, and fucking YES there’s Gio by Armani which is a score in your book. Musky enough to not be too fruity, but probably appealing as hell to Mikey who gets into that rich Vinewood bullshit. 

You can’t do fuck-all about your shitty hair, and you’re already thinning on top probably thanks to stress more than genetics, but fuck it, it’s as good as it gets. Your leather bomber goes on, right after your combat boots, and in one of the pockets is an old cherry Chapstick you stole sometime last winter, but you’ve sparingly used it because you were afraid of the implications, but now you don’t really have to give a fuck, so you purse your lips, slather that shit on there, and hope for the best, fingers crossed. When you look in the mirror, you expect to look different, like this is Halloween all over again, and there should be a princess behind the glass, but you just look like a fucking fairy playing pretend again. What the fuck did you think you were doing here?

There’s a small gasp behind you, and you’re almost afraid to turn around for fear that he’s just going to confirm that you look like a fucking loser too, but he spins you into his arms and takes a long whiff from you, really inhaling you like he’s getting off on the scent of you. “God _damn_ , baby.” Maybe in a way, he is. “I didn’t know what I was picturing when I saw this, but holy shit, it went even better than it looked in my head.” Horny hands roam places you wish they really would, cupping and lightly fingering and making you hot and lonely and miserable at the same time. “I’d yank this up and bend you over right here, T, fuck you till you can’t walk for a week,” he whispers into your neck as he does wonderful things with his lips and tongue.

“So why don’t you?” you all but whine as you grind yourself into him.

He stops himself and takes a deep breath so suddenly, and Jesus God Almighty, you’d swear that Michael Townley is the king of cockblocking, himself. Rubbing his face with his palms, he rolls his shoulders and tries his best to look apologetic as he answers, “Because we have to get going. We got a drive ahead of us, so you can go back to sleep, get you a few more hours if you want.”

“OK.”

* * *

Michael’s an insomniac, and it’s not a bad thing. Hell, you’ve had problems with it yourself where you’ve needed downers to put you to sleep and uppers to get moving, but you don’t know how Michael keeps going like he does, and you sometimes think that his lack of sleep -- and the loud, deadly strangled gasping he makes while asleep -- might be part of the cause behind his shitty moods sometimes. Otherwise, he’s a peach. 

But today, maybe it’s not a good thing to be left to sleep so much because you’re left with nothing but the radio playing “ _Yesterday’s Hits and Today!_ ” and your dreams which keep fading in and out between glimpses of what life could be like with you and Mikey as a couple with your own adopted brats and your own house someday to nightmares of the abuse you suffered when you grew up, to random dancing clarinets and hockey sticks that make you feel so uncomfortable that you wake in a jolt for a few fun-filled moments before you realize you’re dangerously close to home, so you nod off for about another hour of a nightmare that leaves you sick to your stomach where you’re watching Michael get killed right in front of you, and there’s nothing you can do. Then you’re alone again, and there’s nothing you can do. You’re always alone, and you wake up crying.

Video Killed The Radio Star fades away in the distance as the object of your last horrid dream turns it down. “Yo, hey, what’s up? What’s wrong?” 

You curl in on yourself, not really wanting to relive any of the shit you just dreamed. What good will it do to talk about any of that shit anyway? So you yawn and pretend to stretch and scratch your nuts. “Just dreams, Mikey. Haven’t been this close to home in years.”

He nods and turns the radio back up, considering the conversation over. You bob your head along when they play I Want To Be Sedated and something by the GoGos that the name escapes you right now, and grumble when the dumber newer pop shit plays. You’re close to the bay and beach piers at this point, and the sun is starting to drop in the sky in a spectacular palette of violet dusky clouds and orange red fireball when an old familiar tune by the Cocteau Twins comes wafting through the evening air, brushing your eardrums, caressing your memories. You grip Michael’s wrist gently. “Park the car, Mikey, please? This song...I…,” you try to explain, but you can’t, so he nods and just follows, and you’re so glad for that right now that you literally jump out of it and throw yourself on the sand when he pops the clutch and nudges the stick. There are people milling about the beach, you know, but you don’t give a solid fuck, let them STARE. “T-t-turn it up a little, will ya?” you ask as the music fills your ears, and your body sways to the melody.

He clears his throat, and you’re sure he’s noticed the amount of fucking people staring, but he surprises you instead by patting your hair gently. “Do you want to dance, T?” And you surprise yourself by nodding shyly and letting him pull you into his arms, and you notice that even though the both of you are strong, he’s just slightly broader, even though you’re sure you could lift him off the ground, and that relaxes you in a weird way that it shouldn’t, but also turns you on in other ways. Before you know it, you’re blushing into the crook of his neck while you both make terrible movements to the song because you’re god-awful dancers.

Idly, you remember it’s called Pandora and that you’ve heard it playing in your mom’s room in the past when she’s been busy _entertaining_ , and you don’t know what that says about you. It both excites you and frightens you because it’s both beautiful and haunting like your mother, and you feel like you should be ashamed that you’re getting a massive boner over this, but as you grind into Michael, you just let him believe that it’s one hundred percent from him -- well, he has maybe eighty percent to do with it with the way he’s dressed, especially now that he’s loosened some buttons and his tie since he made the pick-up while you were sleeping, and Christ on a cracker, you can imagine him if he’d made pro-level football and what kind of classy stud he’d been with chicks on his arms, and you’d definitely never met him then. You’d still be _having issues_ and putting animals out of their misery to alleviate boredom and robbing the occasional gas station to get by like some fucking loser. Maybe you would have offed yourself finally by now. Or maybe someone would’ve done you in by the grace of good fuck. 

The song ends, as does the dance, but your memories are still an open wound that’s fresh and stinging. As you both lean against the car, you pull your bomber jacket closer to you as the winds are colder than shit here by the bay, and when Michael lights up a Redwood, you steal it away for yourself. 

“Hey! You’re always bitching about me smoking these damn things!” he laughs.

“Yeah, well,” you fumble for an excuse to taste anything on your lips besides memories best long forgotten, and you’d rather taste a bit of heaven right now, “maybe I need a bit of cancer right now. You’ve got plenty.”

He stares at you with that half-lidded glazed-over sexy smolder of his and takes the cigarette from you for a quick draw before handing it back. “You know ya look so damn good with something in your mouth.”

You don’t even get the chance to blush before you hear a bunch of very Canadian voices echo through the nearly night sky, screaming at you. “Fecking faggots! Get outta here! No one wants to see that shit huh!”

Anger courses through your blood so quickly you’d swear you breathe that shit like oxygen, and it takes a LOT of strength and coaxing from Michael to keep you from going over to those motherfuckers and beating them with lug wrench that you know is in the trunk just for flats and bullshit like this, but you’re also pissed at him because he seems more at unease with being caught out in the open like this with you than he is pissed at these assholes for ruining what was just two people having a good time. 

And then you’re driven back to another time when you suddenly hear a name. “Ryan, get a load of these queens! One’s even in a dress.” There’s a slight pause while you’re struggling to breathe for the first time in ages -- Michael’s definitely starting to notice that as he grips you tighter to him protectively -- where you’re wondering if it’s just another clown with the same name, but then a face starts to come into view as the guy loudly proclaims, “Looks a bit like your little brother, eh?”

You haven’t seen Ryan in who knows how fucking long because you really haven’t wanted to see his horrible ass in forever, you got enough beatings from Dad and misery from Mom, and God knows you didn’t need your ass kicked by your brother on repeat. Once you were old enough to be doing shit on your own and getting along just fine without the need for anyone that wasn’t a product of a state-run institution, you figured he’d shot up enough heroin to have ODed into a hole somewhere, but unfortunately, you realize you’re wrong. He still looks pretty bad and as close to dead as you can get without actually being there yet, and he’s grown closer to your dear old dad in appearance the older he’s gotten, so that gives Mom one more reason to love him more than she ever could you.

There’s recognition there between the both of you. Ryan’s dipshit friends may not be able to figure it out, but Michael isn’t stupid like they are, and he’s looking at you as if you’ve grown an extra head. It’s that _What stupid fucking thing is Trevor going to do now?_ look you call it when you see people doing it because you’ve sure done enough for people to do it a lot by now. 

Ryan looks straight at you. “Nah, that ain’t Trevor. That dumbass never could keep himself out of trouble and is probably dead in a hole somewhere.” Then he shoves the guy who was talking to him a little roughly as he states plainly, “And I told you my brother isn’t no fucking fairy.” He walks towards you and spits at the ground. “‘Specially not one wearing a goddamn dress like a girl.”

Seeing red is a phrase that comes to mind whenever you’ve completely lost it to the point of where you aren’t even in control of what the fuck your body and brain are doing anymore, and you’ve been pushed there a few times in your short existence already. You really try not to, dammit. You’re not this horrible fucking animal everyone tries to make you out to be, but there’s only so much shit one person can take, and you’ve reached your limit a few times. This is one of those times. You’re pretty fucking sure you’re going to kill Ryan when you push yourself off Michael and pounce on your brother’s waifly ass.

You introduce him to your FUCK and YOU tattoos you got while you were in prison shortly after you met Michael in your first heist gone wrong -- you really learned to listen better after that instead of insisting you knew what the fuck you were doing because of old movies and TV shows, but you also learned that you weren’t that bad, and you even got complimented by Michael on your overall idea. How was anyone supposed to know some dumbass tub of lard you’d gone to grammar school with was the manager and actually remembered your name -- maybe you put a firecracker up his cat’s ass once, you’re not completely sure.

“You lying piece of jerkoff SHIT! You know damn well who I am! I’m not dead in a ditch even though you probably would wish that!” you scream into his face and slam his head into the pavement. “And I’m not a fucking fairy either, Ryan, you’re absolutely right! I’m just fucking me, Trevor fucking Philips.”

He laughs bitterly at you, blood dancing along little crevices in his face, painting his mouth, dotting his nostrils. “Really, Trevor? Because from down here you still look like the little queer I used to have to teach to be a man after you made Dad leave with your bullshit.” He hocks and spits red splotches onto the ground beside him. “Only queers wear dresses and dance with guys.” He glares daggers at Michael who looks away guiltily. 

This is never going to end. Mikey’s always going to be uncomfortable in public the instant someone even utters something bad. No matter how many tattoos you put on yourself, you’re never going to feel any cooler. No matter how much you shoot up or smoke or drink, you’re never going to fill the void in your heart left by your parents. Your mom is always going to love Ryan more because he’s manly. She’s always going to wish you’d been a girl. You’re always going to wish someone would just cut your miserable fucking head off and end it all. 

Ryan’s never going to love you like a brother’s supposed to. He’s never going to stop this stupid bullshit, never going to stop blaming you for your dad deserting the family and going to start a new one. He’s never going to accept that shit just happens sometimes.

And you can’t blame him because you’re having a hard time accepting that too.

You pull yourself up off him looking down at your dress that’s now sadly become a greenish red mess not unlike picked snot and thrust your hand out to help him up. It’s the least you can do. You really feel like you shouldn’t do shit for him, but dammit, you’re trying to mature, not be the _permanent victim_ or _troubled child_ like people want to label you when they’re pissed off at you or done with you. He looks at your hand as if it’s something diseased and kicks away from you. “Suit yourself,” you mock him and roll your eyes. Jesus, talk about people playing victim. “Look, I’m just down with everyone, OK. And so what how I dress. Punk is a statement. And this is comfortable. Maybe you should try it. The stick up your ass could move freer.” You hear giggling, and you’re not sure if it’s Michael or some of Ryan’s buddies. 

“Just get the fuck away from me, Trevor.” He moves away from you and goes back towards the group of guys he came in with. “Get the fuck outta here if you know what’s good for you and don’t come back. No one needs you. You’re dead to me.”

Michael moves in quickly to your side after that, ever the hero. “Hey hey HEY, that’s not a nice fucking thing to say to your brother! You better take that shit back real fast or you’ll be eating my--”

You hug him to you and kiss his cheek, ignoring the fake puking noises from the crowd. “It’s OK, Mikey.” When you look back at your brother, you hope he sees every ounce of darkness and hatred that fills your eyes while you smile. You’re pretty sure he does judging by the way he inches backward. “Ryan, let’s hope we never run into each other ever again or I’m going to remember every fucking beating you ever gave me, every last fucking word you ever said to me as I’m killing you.” You spit in his direction. “Believe that.”

* * *

As you settle into bed for the night, you begin to cry for what feels like the fifteenth time over the dress of all damn things because it was SO DAMN PRETTY, and you keep moaning over and over to Michael about how you ruined the first dress he’s ever bought you and now you deserve to fucking die a horrible death dammit, and you’re still in tears as he rubs your back and shushes you. “Some guy, your brother.”

“I’m sorry about the dress, Michael!” you sob again.

“Jesus Christ, will you forget about the damn dress already!”

You know your face is a pile of snot, tears, blood, and who knows what else, and Michael is really picky about that kind of shit, but you don’t care as you blow your nose into his sleeve. “But it was b-b-beautiful, and I r-r-r-r-ruined it! He’s fucking right, Mikey! I r-r-ruin everything! I made Dad leave, I made Mom hate me, I made him hate me...why can’t I make anyone l-l-l-love me?” 

He pulls you to him gently and kisses your forehead so softly, it’s like his lips are melting into your skin, and it feels fucking fantastic, like leaves coasting in the breeze and sand between your toes kind of fantastic. Warm sunny days that last forever. “I can get ya another dress. I’ll get ya whatever. We can go shopping, you and me, so forget about the dress, OK?” You nod, sniffing back up a bit of snot that’s bubbled from your right nostril. “Don’t worry about your brother or your fucking family.” He holds your chin firmly and looks into your eyes. You can feel something burning behind his, his own demons and memories, you guess. “You didn’t ruin shit, you hear me? Your fucking family is worthless, not you. Fuck them for not wanting you. I want you.” 

You feel like you’re skipping through fields of fucking daises right now. This can’t be right though because they make you sneeze. It's a moment like fine china, fragile and yearning to break if you move wrong. “You won’t want me either, one day. Someone else will come along.”

Michael shakes his head and holds you so tightly, like he’s afraid this moment will pass too. “Won’t let it happen. It’s just you and me, forever, Trev. I won’t leave you, no matter what.”

You relax into his chest, feel his heartbeat, and hope you can keep believing that.


	3. Amanda, You Light of My Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title from the chapter is taken from an old song by Don Williams. I actually used Cycling Trivialities by Jose Gonzalez as my background music, don't ask me why. 
> 
> And my apologies, this could've went on forever, but trying to wrangle a computer from two other people in your household can be quite perplexing, so I cut it about the same length as the others. 
> 
> Bonus points to those who get some references from the game. ;)

You’ve been sailing through shitholes and small cities with your ragtag crew for so long like some sort of misbegotten wannabe Bonnie and Clyde at their best, and on darker unforgiving days, Frank and Jesse James at their worst. The names and faces change depending on where you are or what the job is, your only constants remaining Michael and Lester, and it’s a soothing lull that guides you like the steady hum of a well-oiled machine. You know each others’ outards and, well, innards, even if Lester would smack you for that last one. 

The game gets easier. It grows easier to slice this guy’s neck, shoot this guy in the head, run that one down. You’re almost frightened at yourself at how easy this has become and how much you eat it all up now. Part of you realizes that you were probably always cut out for this considering your childhood _hobbies_ , for lack of a better word, but damn, you’d like to think you are a least a decent guy. 

Another part of you has also come to the conclusion that you also have this...this -- what the fuck did Sally Jesse or that Oprah chick call it? -- permanent neon sign on your head that says USE ME, and people walk into your life and just do it because you haven’t yet learned to tell the signs, but you think you’re starting to see some. You’re honest with yourself finally when you realize that you must’ve had one on you when Michael met you, and that’s how he ended up dragging you along because he manages without fail to guide you back to him no matter how many times he finds a quick fuck in some barfly, hooker, or desperate junkie. You’ve tried to make him jealous, you’ve honestly _tried_ , but he knows. He knows how much you need him, and he knows you’ll always come back to him in the end like he’s your fix. 

You want to be done with his shit so many times, but then you get lost in the space that’s his irises, and you’re swimming in them again, dreaming of a million daisy summer days and his sunny smiles embracing you like golden warm showers of love.

Until you wake up and realize it’s just some rando fucking jizzpot pissing on you while she scratches her ass and leans on her haunches to do her business. A quick look around is enough to show you that you passed out in the alley behind the motel because Michael had the nerve to have someone in your fucking bed of all fucking places and you’re just so fucking pissed off you could walk in there and blow the back of her fucking brains through her eyes right after you get up and shoot this paunchy cockeyed bitch first.

“‘Scuse tha mess.” It speaks at you, you realize. “Didn’t know you were just sleepin’.” She giggles lightly to herself like a child who’s been caught knowing something she shouldn’t. “Thought you were dead.”

“Well, isn’t that fucking pleasant,” you ground out. Jesus fuck, you have the queen of all migraines going on. Probably partied yourself into misery just a little too much last night. You’re not sure what the fuck time it is, nor do you find yourself even caring at this point. You recall from somewhere in the depths of your hazy mind that you do have a job to do somewhere for Lester, but you’re not even sure what fucking DAY you’re on at this point, and you’re wondering sullenly if that shithead can even comprehend emotions beyond wanting to watch Slumber Party Massacre panty raid shit and talk endlessly about that fucking WarGames movie, but you’re thinking about trying to talk to him about why you can’t do this shit with Michael, why you need a break to yourself or a gig with someone else because if you see his hand up someone’s skirt like a goddamn puppet again one more time, and it’s NOT yours, you’re going to...you’re going to….

You don’t even want to finish that. 

And then an ear-piercing laugh comes from the side of you, reminding you that your dream piddler is still among you. She nudges a bottle of Seagram’s 7 towards you, and you take it, although begrudgingly. “Sorry, buddy. Mike’s been quite a while with Mandy, but homegirl can suck dick like no other--”

“I doubt that,” you mumble loudly and take a big swig, hoping -- almost fucking praying -- to unhear what you just heard, to get some sort of relief. You were already somewhat aware that this Amanda is a stripper with a mediocre rack at what passes for a gentlemen’s club here, and she hooks on the side for extra cash. You also know she’s been eyeing Michael for a while now, and you’re not sure if it’s for his looks, the cash, or the thrill, but you DO know he’s been sniffing at her, and you keep reminding yourself of his stupid promise to you that you’ll always be together no matter what, and maybe this is supposed to be fun for all of you, so you’re trying to be nice and be “the best bud,” but damn is it _fucking hard_. You already had to stop dressing certain ways because she thought “guys in dresses is a little weird,” so here we are. So you suck that hurt down because you promise yourself _again_ that this is supposed to be fun for you all. Michael said, goddamn it, and you can trust him. He’s safe, he’s never let you down yet, he’s never failed you…

Except when he’s fucking everyone else on top of you and almost fucking afraid to be seen with you and making you change how you look.

DAMMIT.

You take another hearty swig and pass it back to its misshapen but now dressed owner. “I can’t take it anymore. I have work, for fuck’s sake, so they’ll just have to be OK with me being in the room.”

She shrugs and giggles again. “Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.”

You wonder whatever the living fuck that’s supposed to mean as you pound on the door before using your key. You don’t even give enough of a fuck to shout out a half-hearted “coming in” because fuck it, they didn’t even bother with a sock on the door, and you can hear Amanda going at it like a champ, anyway. 

What greets you is the most painful and yet erotic sight you think you’ve ever seen.

This small slip of a woman is driving herself with the force of a jackhammer up and down Michael, her nipples are the most defining part of her breasts, erect and hard like they’re trying to get your attention, and from the squeals and grunts she makes, you can tell she’s having fun because who wouldn’t be when being slapped seven ways from Sunday on that massive cock?

But the most appealing sight is when Michael’s eyes catch yours, and at first he blushes when he sees you, but then he grins and slams into her just a little bit more, just the way you would like it, and you can’t help but turn red too because you’re turned on by this twisted fucking game, but your mind is also yelling at you to STOP THIS SHIT AND LEAVE while your heart just wants to reach out and touch them like they’re priceless treasures you stumbled upon in this ancient motel room. 

“I-I-I’m sorry, Mikey, we g-g-gotta work, and I n-need sleep.” You feel like a goddamn kid asking permission to use the bathroom, and your nerves are seriously frayed -- especially when you notice that you’ve gotten Amanda’s attention and scared her shitless -- but you’re not sure what to do with yourself. Jesus Christ, what you do for a living is a fucking walk in the park compared to dealing with emotions. If only it could all be like that. 

“So get in bed.”

Both you and Amanda look at him like he’s insane, but only she has the nerve to answer. “There’s only one bed, Mike. What the hell are you playing at?”

He smiles up at her, ever the charmer. “What? He’s my best friend. You can’t help a guy out? Look at him, babe.” He pulls her to him and whispers something in her ear you can’t hear, but maybe this is some of those promises Michael meant. 

She looks back at you, a bit unsure, but then rolls her eyes and cocks her head. “Whatever, like I haven’t done weirder.” Then she beckons to you with an arm like a short graceful snake. “Come on, Trevor. Let’s get you to bed, you look like hell.”

You let them undress you like you’re some incapable baby, but it feels so good to be so loved by so many, and maybe this is what Mikey meant when he made his promise and said to trust him. There are so many lips and fingers everywhere, and you can barely keep the moans from escaping as someone’s mouth is at your nipples toying with them while someone else’s is nibbling gently at your ballsack. 

“Enjoying yourself, Trev?” 

You’re not even sure you have energy to form an intelligible answer, and there’s sweet laughter, this time from Amanda. “I’d say he is. You know, Trevor, you’re awfully cute when you’re like this instead of being an annoying prick.” She slides onto you, and you gasp, because this is new territory for you but not necessarily unpleasant. “I like this prick.”

Michael chuckles and guides her towards him so he can kiss her as he lifts your ass a little higher on the bed. “Yeah, I told you you would, baby.” He’s looking at you as he says it, so you’re not sure if he’s calling you baby or her, but it doesn’t even matter because soon he enters you, and you see stars when he hits just the right spot.

“Why...why are you both d-doing this?” you huff out as Amanda bounces down, and Michael pounds in. 

Amanda’s bouncing becomes quicker as you can tell she’s getting ready to come. “Who _cares_ , man? You overthink shit! Just sit back and enjoy!”

Fuck it. Maybe she’s right. File it away for another day, why can’t you just let yourself enjoy this moment while you still have it? Who knows how long it’s all here to last? You could get shot tomorrow and never see anyone again, you’d be a faded memory in Michael Townley’s long life.

You grab her hips and fuck her into wild abandon, relishing the feel of someone new, but also wishing that the new experience was Michael. But then again, in a way, it is with him still. 

The rooms become her joyous screams as she comes onto you, you pour yourself into her, and Michael empties himself into you, never once breaking eye contact or his smile. In fact, you think this is the happiest you’ve ever seen him, and you fall into an easy sleep with them in your arms and that thought on your mind. 

* * *

One morning you wake to arguing, and you don’t know why. The sounds and feelings leave you with a slimy familiarness not unlike when you were a kid and your parents fought. You panic and try to think back to anything you could have done to upset the balance, but can’t really think of anything. For fuck’s sake, everything has been about as damn near _perfect_ as you can get it, you haven’t even given Amanda one reason to complain, and you’ve even given them alone time without really getting much in return -- because Amanda insists you get enough time together as it is -- so you really can’t figure out what the fuck you did wrong. You’re almost scared to listen because you know this is the day. Something bad is going to happen, and it’s stuck in your head on repeat.

“For Christ’s sake, what is your deal, Mandy? I need another score to get you the tits you want, babe. Those ain’t exactly cheap, and I can’t just run into a place like some fucking idiot who just learned to jack off yesterday. We wait on Lester for a reason, we plan things out for a reason, we case places out for a fucking reason!”

“It’s not about that, Mike!” You can hear the exasperation in her voice. They haven’t figured out that you’re awake yet since you’re piled under the covers and sheets like they’re your fort, so you peek your face out to gauge the situation. Curiosity has gotten the better of you, and there’s also a niggling feeling at your back that you’re the cause. “You know, it was fun at first, all of this shit, but what are we doing here?”

“Tha fuck you mean?”

“You know what I mean, Michael.” She gestures around as she shimmies back into her miniskirt. “We can’t keep doing this forever. Are we getting serious or what?”

Oh boy, this isn’t going to end well. Michael still has his head in the game and has said as much. He’s not ready to settle down yet. Everything’s just fun and bullshit right now except you guys, you guys are forever. 

Objects start to hit their marks with a little more forcefulness, and you wince, gnawing on your lower lip. PTSD is not the way you want to start this morning, being reminded of days of yore when little Trev hid under pillow forts and covers made delicately over the stained couch bed away from crashing dishes and falling bodies and booming voices. 

“Are we...what the FUCK, Mandy. We’ve got a good thing goin’ on here, babe, but I’m busy with the hustle. If I ever want to get anywhere, I can’t be tied down to some serious bullshit relationship--”

“Oh _really_? But it’s OK to have this thing with _Trevor_??” 

You find yourself sad and hating the way she says your name, like you’re a disgusting piece of shit she has on her shoe. You thought she liked you! Why does everyone fucking end up hating you? Why are you such a sad sack, Trevor? When will you ever get it together?

“That’s different!” Michael yells defensively. 

“HOW?!”

“HE’S MY BEST FRIEND!”

You don’t know why it’s those words that cause such pain to shoot through you, but the tears come, big and fat, and you can’t stop them. You’re a blubbering mess like a goddamn baby, but at least the arguing has thankfully stopped.

“Look what the fuck you did, Amanda,” you hear Michael hiss, and suddenly you feel yourself being embraced, but when you open your eyes, it’s her and not Mikey. She’s hushing you and rubbing your back like your mom used to do back when the memories were good. 

“I’m sorry, Trevor, sweetie. I didn’t know you were awake.”

You really want to ask if it would have made a difference if they’d known, but you don’t even get a chance to utter the words before they’re said for you. “ _Really_ , Mand? Why don’t you just kick him in the balls too?” 

She pinches the bridge of her nose and looks like she wants to say something especially bitchy back at him, but when she catches you staring at her, she stops herself, and you’re not sure if it’s because she’s embarrassed that you were staring, that she was chastised, or that she’s looked into your eyes and seen a bit of the boy you used to be because he’s close to the edge this morning, and she feels sorry for that. She hums a bit and goes back to rubbing your back. “I really _am_ sorry, Trevor. We didn’t mean to wake you with our bullshit. I just need to talk to Michael about something extremely important.”

Michael scoffs and laughs into his freshly lit cigarette. “Yeah, because _something important_ is apparently a fucking serious relationship.”

You peer up at her from under the covers, yawning and stretching in her lap, feeling more like a kid or a cat or very much like a third damn wheel right now. “So where do I fit in?”

She blurts out a laugh that’s so quick, you try to tell yourself that your ears are wrong, and it wasn’t harsh at all, but it really did just feel like that, and you really are feeling that damn third wheel status when she stares down into your eyes with a weird look on her face. “Oh Trevor, _sweetie_ , you’re just a friend. We all have fun sometimes, but there’s no _us_. There’s me and Mike.” She looks back at him. “Who I need to finish discussing something with.”

You try to remind yourself that this sweet face has been a friend, and Mikey likes this sweet face, and _hell_ , you even like this sweet face, but right now, you’re feeling pretty sick and vulnerable. If you don’t get the fuck out of here, you don’t know what the fuck you’re going to do to it, but you feel like you’re going to bash it in.

So you drag the cover fort up with you and hunt for some clothes and cash, not really caring if you’re dressed for the fucking elements a hundred percent, and fuck it, you’d be kidding yourself if you said it’s the first time you’ve gone out in the cold improperly dressed. Your eyes settle on the last dress Michael bought you; a flowery springtime number which seems fucking funny, out of place, and downright torturous at the moment. Grabbing your trusty old combats, a gray windbreaker, and wallet, you don’t even give them another glance as you open the door into the cold night sky. Whatever conversation they were having looked pretty serious anyway, and well, as Amanda said, there’s no _you_ , just _them_.

* * *

You let your feet take you wherever they want to go because you feel like you could walk miles at this point. Fuck, you could walk to Canada right now. Would anyone even miss you? 

They carry you all over town, down every average street, past every picket fence where Michael and Amanda will live one day, over parks where their kids will one day roam, and into the alleys where you will sleep forgotten in filth, and eventually to the bar where you will one day come to die by some sort of means. 

You ask the bartender to start a tab and keep the hardest shit he has coming. He doesn’t even bat an eyelash at your chosen attire although you know others are. He’s probably seen all kinds. The townsfolk, however, probably have not, so there are whispers, but you're used to whispers. 

Shaking fingers comb through your tangled hair, or what’s left of your thinning mess anyway, and you wonder again for the umpteenth time what you could’ve done better. How could you have made things different? How can you make Amanda disappear? 

Why doesn’t Mikey want you?

The whiskey burns so good as it goes down, and you lose count of how many you’ve had, but you know it’s had to be quite a bit by now if the bartender has slowed down, and as much as that pisses you off, you can’t find time to be angry because of the body that’s slid into the seat next to you.

“I’ll have what he’s havin’.”

You may be ten sheets to the wind, but Michael looks like he’s seen a fucking ghost, and briefly you wonder if _he’s_ killed Amanda and stuffed her somewhere, but before you can ask, he just stares at you. It’s not loving, it’s not friendly, it’s not his sunny day face. It’s the look of a dead man or a man heading to the gulag, and he knows it.

You reach out to touch his cheek, but he shies away, and that hurts, _God_ , that hurts so you down the rest of your shot and motion for another, hoping the bartender gets the picture by the _no bullshit_ look on your face. “Mikey,” you whisper softly so that no one else can hear, “can you tell me what’s going on?”

The bartender returns with the both of your drinks, and you watch Michael down his quickly like a man who’s been thirsting in the desert for days. He asks for another and then looks at you, like he’s debating something. 

You start again. “I’m scared. I just want to know what’s going on. Do you hate me now or what, man?”

He nearly chokes on his hollow laughter. “Jesus, T, no. I could never hate you, man. I _told_ you, we’re together forever.” 

You release the breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding, and the twisting sensation that’s been in your gut since you awoke is starting to go away. “Oh thank Christ, I thought maybe because Amanda said--”

“T.”

And now the twisting is back. You turn to look at him, trying to get the twitching in your left eye under control before he sees it. “Y-y-yes?”

“There’s a problem.”

“W-what fucking p-p-p-problem?”

Michael sighs so deeply like he’s exhausted, and you just want to take that away from him if he’d only let you. “She’s pregnant.”

And you can’t help the way your mind works, you really can’t. It’s going a mile a minute. A stripper -- a fucking _hooker_ \-- pregnant, and he’s going to believe it’s HIS kid? Hell, it could be ANYONE’s kid, it could even be YOUR kid with as many times as you all have fucked together. 

But she’s got Michael hook, line, and sinker, and you can see it. She’s already been cutting him into the cash on the johns he gets for her, and she appreciates the money he throws her way for things she wants, so you see no other way here. You’re screwed. You are SO fucking screwed! 

You look him straight in the eyes, not in the mood for any bullshit. “Michael, I’m sorry that you didn’t plan the fuck ahead of time since you didn’t want kids, but what are you going to do? This screws up a lot of shit, you _know_ that.”

He pounds on the table and yells, “Goddamn, Trevor! Don’t be a bitch like Amanda!” 

Now the bar patrons have gotten interested in your theatrics, so you throw what should cover your tab, his, and then some, pull him past the prying eyes and gaggles of giggling which make you furiously on edge and uneasy, and once you are outside, you duck into an alley a few feet down from the front of the bar. 

“Look, Michael--”

His tongue is in your mouth and down your throat before you can finish that thought, and his hands are busy in places that feel so good, but _dammit_ , you wish he’d have a fucking conversation without letting his dick do the thinking just sometimes. That would be so damn awesome too. 

He comes up for air to pepper your neck with kisses. “You know what that dress and you in it do to me, you fucking asshole. I swear you walked off in it on purpose.”

“And what? You followed me?”

He looks taken aback, mad even. “I tried. I thought I’d caught up to you once down by the river. I was worried you were thinking some really shitty stuff.” He shrugs. “Ya know.”

There’s this really goddamn girly part of you that wants to jump up and down in fucking joy right now that he actually cared about you over Amanda -- or at least is making it seem that way -- but there’s this little buzz at the back of your brain, this little persistent feeling niggling again. It’s been picking steadily like someone’s doing a lobotomy but from the wrong fucking end, and you’d give anything for it to just stop, so you decide to shut it up even though you really don’t want to travel down this path.

“Mikey, how do we do all of this with a kid? What are you going to do?”

“I...don’t know.” He looks so helpless in this moment, almost younger than he actually is. “I’m not ready to be a dad, T, but I can’t do a kid like my dad did me.”

He’s never talked about his dad that much, but you know from what he’s shared, it was never anything good, and you understand why this is eating at him. If the roles were reversed, what would you do? Well, besides not getting someone knocked up, of course, but what’s done is done. 

You take his hands in yours ever so gently and bring them to your chest. “What do you want to do?”

He stares you in the eyes, almost as if he’s pleading with you to answer for him, but you can’t do that. _He_ has to do it. Fuck knows you _want_ to do it, but he has to answer for his mistakes. Everyone has to answer for their mistakes in the end. You sure have so far. 

He looks to the ground. “We’re going to get married. I’m going to talk to Lester about how this will work.” He chuckles darkly. “I’m obviously gonna need a lot of that in the future, so it’s not like I can take a break. She’s just going to have to be OK with things.”

You stare up at the sky, wanting to ask the one thing on your mind, but you can’t. It’s stuck in your throat along with your hatred for yourself. You’re struggling with every thought in your body that’s screaming for you two to run run RUN far the fuck away from here, let her deal with her own shit, you can go out west somewhere and send for Lester and start anew. There’s got to be no end of stuff to do out west. 

But you feel selfish for even having such thoughts. 

His hand cups your chin, and he places a chaste kiss there. “I said she’s just going to have to be OK with things, T.” He pulls you deeper into the alley into the darkest part, and while you’re partly excited because you know what wonderful things he’s about to do to you, you also find again that you don’t like this path, being this far out of the light.


	4. I Can't Make You Love Me (1991)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have tried my best to hunt down an official timeline of the GTA 5 universe from when Michael and Trevor are born to present day, but there only seems to be a fanmade one which also seems to have some inaccuracies, so I am just going to try my best with what I could find across different wikis and from what I could recall from gameplay. I can't recall if Trevor was actually gone from their lives from right before Tracey was born until right after Jimmy was born or if I just read that in a fanfic, so we're just going to go with that here. I also know there's a discrepancy about the ages of Michael and Trevor. I just went with Rockstar's actual website wiki and not the GTA one. The Rockstar one puts Trevor like four years younger or something like that -- OK, I finally found a better definitive guide that someone made, and after reading that and talking with others, for all intents and purposes, Michael and Trevor are the same age. 
> 
> This was written with Bonnie Raitt's I Can't Make You Love Me in mind which was a huge hit in 1991, by the way. I can see Trevor playing this on repeat in my head. :(

Everything becomes a whirlwind of getting a trailer for Amanda, maternity stuff for Amanda, special fucking food for Amanda, a foot rub for Amanda, or maybe tonight she needs a back massage, and this isn’t even including the goddamn baby stuff that has to be discussed yet. No, instead, you are left to act like you are Michael’s fucking backup quarterback for when he is tired of dealing with her shit, so he sends you in so he can ride the couch with a beer while you play husband number two -- which, goddamn, at least they have a fucking piece of paper that ties them together courtesy of the Justice of the Peace. You have nothing tying you to anyone. You don’t even have a room here. You spend your miserable days here, and your nights are mostly spent alone falling asleep wherever since it’s not cold enough now for you to care about needing a room. What’s the need for a room if there’s no one to share the motherfucker with?

Lester has promised to find you shit to do even if it’s small jobs like running hot cargo by plane for him to Canada just to keep you preoccupied because he can see that you’re on the brink of cracking from this shit, and you even think he feels for you somewhat -- will wonders never cease -- besides the fact that Michael has become more of a local homebody thanks to Amanda’s insistence. He’s running out of things to do though, so you know you’ll be back together before too long just like in the old days because Amanda’s harder to pimp out except to weird fucks with a pregnancy fetish, and you’ve already jumped Michael’s shit about that possibly hurting your future godchild -- the jury’s still out on that, _thank you_ , Amanda -- but someone has to think about this kind of shit. And she’s obviously past the point of stripping, so Michael’s hung on by hooking up with a few of her friends and running the same racket with them, but you’re not fucking stupid, and neither is she; he’s starting to sniff around them too. So he needs some other sort of work soon. You’ve been trying to convince her of this in the midst of being Pampering Asswipe Husband Number Two, and that the best thing for all of them would be for him to take bigger heists away from home that pay out more because then he could be home for longer periods of time. You’ve got her pretty much eating shit from your hand, but HE’S got to be the stubborn fuck.

“What if something happens, and no one’s here? What the fuck do we do? It’s not like I can get back right away.”

“Lester’s always nearby and can accommodate anything she would need, you know that. And she has friends here for fuck’s sake. She’s not alone. She’s better off having this fucking kid than me, for Christ’s sakes.”

You don’t know _why_ that slips out, so you try to think for a quick recovery before Michael notices, but by the way he’s looking at you, that’s probably too late. He looks like he really wants to say something but thinks better of it and begins again. “Speaking of the kid, T, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something important.”

You grunt in acknowledgment and nurse on the godawful Michelob Dry you’re drinking, thanking whoever out there that at least it gets the job done because it sure as FUCK tastes like cow piss. “Sure, Mikey. What’s up?”

You notice him staring at the fence in front of him, then at his scotch, then at the fence, over and over again for like five minutes until you think you can feel your own balls sweating. What the _fuck_ is this conversation you’re about to have if he can’t even think of how to start it?

Then suddenly: “So you know in our line of work, we take risks.”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, Amanda is dead set against the idea of you being a godfather--”

That fucking bitch! After everything you’ve done! Watch if you ever rub her feet again! “ _Trevor_.” Still after all this time, all it takes is that said in a certain tone, and you instantly stop. He looks over at you. “Calm down. I didn’t say I agreed with her. She’ll always be not so fucking hot on that idea, OK, because of who you are, and what we do.”

“OH! But it’s OK for YOU to do it.”

“Preaching to the choir, T, but like I said, she’s not really budging on that, but I told her I want you around these kids.” His eyes shimmer, and for a minute, you almost think they’re watering as he says, “How would you like to be an uncle?”

So many thoughts blast through your head in tangents, it's hard to contain them all. It’s a jumbled mess of wondering why Amanda can’t fucking ever be honest to your face and why she’s sneaky like this behind your back, why the fuck she thinks you’d ever endanger a kid considering the bullshit you’d been through as one, why can’t you just be a goddamn godfather because that holds more weight to it for you, but you’re also ecstatic that he even thought to ask you, but he didn’t have to do shit to include you, and it’s like he’s here again, offering you another bone to keep you happy, and you want to be so happy because this is something beautiful that’s half him, but at the same time, you’re miserable because it’s just one more thing you don’t get to have with him. Amanda does. Not you. 

“I...damn, Michael. I don’t know what to say.”

His left hand rests on your right wrist, just casually rubbing up against your beer with his big meaty paw. “There’s nothing _to_ say except yes. I need you there, man. If anything ever happened to me--”

You thrust his hand off yours at that image as it unfurls in your mind, unwanted, nearly spilling the rest of your nasty beer in the process. “HEY. We’re NOT having that conversation,” you ground out forcefully, trying to will away the images of him getting shot or blown to fucking bits in front of you. Jesus, you couldn’t take care of a kid after that. You’d barely have enough strength to pluck from to do much beyond blowing your own head off. 

“We HAVE to, man. You think I WANT to? I don’t want to die, T, but it’s a risk we take. I want to make sure that someone I trust is taking care of my kid or any fucking kids I have along with Amanda. I don’t want them to have to need for anything, you know? Just because I fucked up.”

You understand where he’s coming from, but the images still continue to haunt you, and you gulp down the rest of your beer and pop open another. Jesus Christ, why do you have to see him dead in every horrific detail in your mind’s eye? 

You shiver just as his arms come around you, and that causes you to shiver more.

“Hey, I don’t know what the big deal is, but if you don’t wanna, you don’t. I get it. I’ll figure something out with Lester. I just...it would mean a lot to me. You’re my best friend and the closest person I have to family.” His face is full of those long forgotten sunny days as it stares down into yours, almost pleading. “I love you.”

Three words you’ve longed to hear, but it comes on the back of friendship and brotherhood, so you aren’t sure what he means by it all, and you sigh. You feel like you’re forever doing that anymore. 

“I just can’t say no to those gorgeous blue eyes of yours, Mikey,” you mumble to the ground. 

Strong arms engulf you, and it’s the equivalent of it would feel like being hugged by a huge teddy bear, you’re sure, all warm and fuzzy. He whispers into your left ear, “I knew you couldn’t,” before he nuzzles your neck and kisses the pulse there, leaving you a bit breathless. 

You pull away, aware that you’re not far from where you guys can be caught out in the open, and despite a huge part of you _really_ getting hard right now, you know Amanda would be pissed, and even if you like irritating the fuck out of her sometimes, you’re not going to labeled some homewrecker. You have standards, dammit. They may be low, but you have _some_.

“For fuck’s sake, are you trying to get caught by Amanda? This trailer has windows all over the goddamn place in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Michael goes to pour himself another shot from the bottle but then decides to just chug straight from the damn thing instead. “As long as I’m not touching her friends, what should she fucking care? You’re _my_ friend, and what the fuck we do in our downtime is none of her business.”

You know you should just shut the fuck up and be happy and take what you can get from him because you’re Trevor, and you’ll never have any other chances at happiness in this sadsack life -- your family already told you as much -- but there’s this small part that is just fucking angry. How the fuck can he treat Amanda like shit, and how can he treat you like shit? How can he just go on using people like this? Does he even _know_ he’s doing it?

You sigh bitterly. “Why can’t you just choose?”

“What?”

You look at him warily. “Why can’t you just fucking choose? Or use the balls you were born with to fucking talk to Amanda and say, ‘hey, this is what’s going to happen, and if you don’t like it, then I’m sorry, but we can’t be together,’ because I feel like a goddamn yoyo, Mikey. You tell me that we’re going to have this _special_ relationship, but she shits all over that after a while, and you cave in because you managed to infect her with your crotch rocket which you _now_ want me to play guardian to said infection, and I _will_ , Mikey, because it’s you, and I can’t say no to you, but I hate feeling like you told me you loved me just to get me to babysit your future brat.”

“What the fuck, T, seriously,” he laughs.

“Don’t fucking laugh at me. I _am_ serious like the plague right now.” And you are. How can he not see that? How can he think this is all some goddamn game? You stare him dead to rights, hoping he gets just how much this means to you so he gives you the answers you need to hear and not just more yoyoing bullshit that is getting on your nerves. “What am I to you?”

“Trevor--”

“NO. Don’t start that shit right now. J-just tell me, please, Michael. What am I to you? How do you love me?”

He giggles goofily like he’s had way too much to drink, which you can tell he has at this point. Always a lightweight. “I love you, Trevor. I mean, what do you want me to say? You’re my best friend, my compadre,” he hiccups. “My brother.”

“The brother you just happen to love to stick your dick in?” 

Michael gets caught off-guard and starts coughing so hard, he starts to choke, so you offer him your beer which he readily accepts and sucks down hastily. Without even glancing back up at you, he bites out, “Why the FUCK would you put it that way?”

“Because,” you shrug sadly, “I don’t know how else to. Before Amanda, I really believed you could love me back. I began having stupid happy fucking dreams.” You snort, putting your head into your hands miserably. “I was a fucking fool. But ever since she arrived and pretty much about the time she found out she’s having a crotch goblin, everything has been devoted to her even though you promised me _we’re_ forever too. And I get told I’m supposed to remain a respectable distance away from you at all times because she doesn’t want us too close--”

Michael actually looks pissed off suddenly and not at you. “Wait, when the hell did she say that?”

You wave it off. “It doesn’t matter. The point is that I don’t know what the hell is going on. I can’t _do_ this anymore, man. You can’t keep running back to fuck around with me, OK? I thought I was good with it, but I can’t, Michael.” You never thought it would hurt this much to say this out loud, Jesus Christ. Why can’t you just go back in time, back to when shit was good, when everything felt good? When you look back up at him, there are tears in your eyes. “I can’t just be a fuck buddy anymore, Mikey. I...I actually _love_ you.” And now you’re feeling every bit of your twenty-three years, confused, jaded, naïve, unloved, hurt, and so very young. And so very stupid. 

You don’t want to feel like you’ve wasted time here because you haven’t. It’s been fun. You _do_ care about him -- hell, even Amanda too despite her being super bitchy during her _delicate time_ \-- but you care about him way more than you should, and it’s killing you inside, and you think you really know that now. So in a way, you do feel like you wasted time. Time you could have spent pining away for someone else. 

You’re never going to get over him if you can’t get away from him, at least for a while. You need some distance. 

“Trev? _Trevor_!” His voice is upset, but there’s also a tinge of fearfulness there as he watches you walk away, and you hear the whine of the battered metal picnic table as he lurches towards you, an arm stretched out to grab you, but you pick up speed until you’re almost running, and neighbors are starting to take notice of the Sunday afternoon entertainment. “Christ, Trevor! What the hell are you _doing_?” 

You can’t answer back. If you answer back, you’ll never leave. God, you know you’ll never leave this fucking trap of a goddamn place if you don’t go now. 

His fingers grasp yours just barely and tug, jolting you a bit, so you slow before you fucking faceplant into the gravel driveway, and he spins you around. His face is a sea of wildness just as crazy as the blue of his irises, and he shakes you slightly before pulling you to him. “Where are you going, you asshole,” he mumbles into your shoulder. When you refuse to answer, he gets pissed and grips your wrists, crushing down slightly. “WHY? Why, goddamn it?” Then he shoves you to the ground, and you can see that he’s the one wiping tears away this time. “I...I do love you, T,” he mutters and sniffs, wiping at snot on his face, “but we can’t love each other like that, you know. Not like you want. You see the way people treat that shit.”

Fuck this. Fuck this fuck this _fuck this_. And fuck you for ever falling in love with him. 

You push off the ground in a hurry, not really giving two fucks what it looks like, just knowing that for your own sake you need to get the fuck outta Dodge NOW, and for fuck’s sake if he isn’t after you again like a persistent case of herpes, and now it’s actually starting to piss you off. He wants to be a pussy and deny his feelings, whatever, as long as it’s away from you right now. You need some good booze that isn’t pisswater and some _good_ shit to forget you even exist right now so the goddamn pain will stop stabbing you in the fucking heart and twisting your guts.

“T! C’mon, don’t leave like this! Where the fuck are you even going?” More panicky, desperately, almost childlike, you hear him scream, “I _need_ you!” 

And it nearly cuts you to the soul, but you needed him so many times before now, and where was he? So you continue running until your lungs can’t handle it anymore -- which is blessedly at the point where you reach Lester’s base of operations. A quick talk with him about your mental state -- or lack thereof -- and a much-needed break of you doing shit on your own has him in agreement, thankfully, and you count your lucky stars that he’s apparently been looking into recruiting a few new people, so you’ll be working with someone new and so will Michael, and eventually you’ll all work in some sort of various combinations, so this couldn’t be better music to your ears. The only thing left for you to do in this shithole of a town is to score some booze and crank so you can melt the night away in an alley somewhere before you start running cargo for L. 

Who surprises you by showing the tiniest slip of kindness towards you and asks if you’re really OK.

Michael came before you. These two go way back before you, maybe even to school days. You’ve never even bothered to ask how. You just know that between these two, there’s genuine friendship whereas between you and Michael, it’s always been more flirting and less camaraderie even though there _is_ that too. But there’s always been tension between you two, unlike him and Lester where there’s a friendly -- if somewhat unorthodox to others -- banter. So you’re honestly touched he cares.

But you just shake him off and pretend shit is gonna be just fine because the last you want him thinking is that you can’t handle work, so you give your biggest shit-eating grin even if he doesn’t completely buy it and walk out his door in search of the guy who usually supplies you. It’s been a while since you’ve honestly needed a fix besides you and Mikey having a snort here and there to stay alert for a job or just to have some fun. You haven’t touched crank in a hot minute because for a while…

For a while you’ve actually been happy and haven’t needed to dull the pain.

And that’s when the waterworks hit again, full force. Will it ever fucking _stop_?

* * *

After a few weeks, you reach a sort of easy groove working on and off with a couple of new guys. You don’t talk much beyond the normal operations bullshit, but lately, you really aren’t much for chitchat, and after an explanation from Lester that you had some bad shit recently happen to you, these guys at least respect that. The Russian guy or wherever the fuck he’s from who’s come in from Liberty City is probably the most respectful of that out of the bunch. The Irish brothers were really starting to get on your fucking goddamn nerves after the first week. The only things they proved good for in the end were darts and drinking. You prefer the quietness of N to the other two. 

Everything still hurts, especially when L tells you that Michael has practically begged him for fucking information. You worry your lip till it bleeds and ask him if it’ll hurt their friendship if that info is kept from Michael, and Lester actually laughs and says you don’t know him well enough, implying hard that he keeps lots of shit from Mikey, and one of these days you’re going to find out just what he means by that, but he’s not in the mood to disclose that today. You do hear that Amanda is as big as a fucking house now, and they think the ultrasound that they got in the city over showed probably a girl. 

Everyone’s doing as fine as they always would’ve been anyway without you. Except Michael has apparently started drinking more and isn’t home that much. He’s been doing recon work and planning with this other new guy L has brought in, a big hulking motherfucker named Moses. They do other shit for L that doesn’t require a pilot, and that’s just fine with you.

But with every drink you take, you find yourself needing just one more to get through. And with every hit you take, you find you need a bigger fix to fix your heart. It’s never enough. Nothing’s ever enough. You want to go back to that place where you were happy, but you can’t find it anymore, and you’ve seriously thought about jumping into the goddamn river or just going someplace no one can ever find you because you’re never going to be happy again, and you know it now. You catch yourself thinking you see him when you’re in town long enough to actually run into him, and you think you do it on purpose to want to run into him because fucking Christ, Granville isn’t big enough to _not_ run into each other, but you know it’s the drugs, and you also know Lester has made it so you’re opposite one another for your sake, so you’re just chasing memories and ghosts. 

Why the fuck were you ever so stupid? Why couldn’t you just leave well enough alone? Why did you have to go chasing shit you knew you couldn’t have? You’re never satisfied, no, you’ve got to be Mommy’s greedy fucking piggy, always.

* * *

You know you’re hitting a bad point when you’ve been shot for the first time in your life, and you’re stuck wondering if you go to a hospital somewhere, get someone to dig it out and sew you up and take your chances with infection, or if you just let things be. 

You’ve lost track of what day this is or even what month it is, only that it’s colder because because you actually got yelled at by Lester to wear a goddamn jacket and stop being a fucking self-absorbed idiot. Everything is just a focus of work, booze, and whatever drug you can get to ease the burning inside. You think your compadres might be a little scared of you now instead of actually just being respectful because you’ve been downright fucking crazy, and you feel like a shithead for it, but you also can’t find it in yourself to care much. 

Everything is falling apart anyway, so what the fuck would it matter. You did catch a glimpse of Michael and Amanda not too long ago while you were camped out at the park on a bench catching some shuteye, and they looked like they gave not one single fuck about good ol’ Trevor, so you just found yourself hating them more, but also hating yourself more, and more than anything wishing that they would’ve just seen you and acknowledged you, and you really wanted to just say hello, but you just _had_ to be the bigger person and beat Michael Townley at his own game. 

And you were so fucking lonely, you ended up calling your godforsaken mother yearning to be yelled at, only to get told by Ryan that she was in jail again before he told you that he doesn’t accept calls from queers and hung up. 

And that was the most love and normalcy you’d felt in a while. 

So you hit everything harder, and that’s where you are now, so fucked up you can’t function correctly, and you took a bullet near the junction of your hip which burns like a real bitch, like you’re not sure you can even walk, and you’re about ninety percent sure Lester is going to fucking kill you finally, thankfully, if this bullet doesn’t, or he’s at least going to chew you out or maybe even cut you from working altogether, and _why couldn’t you just get it to-fucking-gether, man_?

You hear voices around you, enough to know that one of the Irish brothers is on the horn to L while you’re a bundle of fucking searing pain and nightmarish amounts of blood soaking your jeans and shirt -- and that, you find yourself crying to because it’s an old Blondie band shirt Michael bought you once upon a time.

The Eastern European who you’ve come to learn as Niko tries to keep you calm and lets you know that there’s help coming, but you need to do something, and his accent is so thick you can’t understand it, but you get the gist -- you need to calm down if you want to live. 

Do you _want_ to live?

You fade in and out, memories playing through the haze of your mind. Do you really want to live? Is it worth it, living like this? Michael’s beautiful face comes in and out of your vision. Do you want to live without him?

You start to cry harder, but someone bitches at you to stop or you’re going to bleed the fuck out and that you’re already a bit cold to the touch. Thinking it’s Niko, you wave the voice off, hissing out in pain, “Who fucking cares, N. Just let me die already.”

“I’m never letting you die, T. You can walk away again, I don’t care, but I won’t let you die. You’re still my friend, and I love you.”

Your eyes try to focus on what you think you see, and you’re sure you heard him, but you’re so fucked up, you’re sure you’re hallucinating. No, Michael Townley is off having grand adventures with his new life without you, you’re sure, as you fade into unconsciousness. 

* * *

The next time you wake up, there is a hospital bed, dimmed lights, charts, machines along with their attachments humming noisily around you, and what appears to be a very grim looking Lester staring at you along with someone sleeping in a chair.

“W-where?” Your lips are cracked, and your throat is so parched, you’re not sure how long you’ve been asleep. 

“Prescott County General. I know a few people here. As far as they know, this was a hunting accident gone bad, and your name is Phil Treverse. I pay them in cash, so they don’t really ask questions,” Lester answers.

You crack a smile. “Cute alias.”

But he’s definitely not smiling back. “A friend who’s a nurse here _did_ tell me you had so much shit in your system that you definitely shouldn’t have been _hunting_ , if you catch my drift.”

You nod. You really would rather tell him where to stuff his concern, that it won’t happen again, but your throat is so scratchy, you’re not sure you can get the words out. You at least try to ask if everything went OK. He nods and says the hunt was a success, no thanks to you. For fuck’s sake, that’s going to mean a deep cut in your take. 

You indicate over towards the chair, trying to figure out who’s over there, thinking maybe Niko was kind enough to stay behind to check up on you. “Oh, I’ve been waiting around here for a few hours to see if you’d wake up. You’ve been in and out of consciousness for a little over a week. I just didn’t want you to redamage that surgery I paid for when you see who’s in the room with you.”

You blink, not liking where this is going. “What?”

Lester stands and moves towards the chair, nudging the sleeping person awake. “Michael, he’s awake.” 

You try to move, but everything hurts and is painstakingly slow. “N-n-no. I don’t want his d-d-damn ass here. Not r-r-right n-n-n-now.” Michael’s already started to rise a bit, but you notice him stop dejectedly when you say that. 

“His damn ass saved you!” Lester snaps harshly. He motions back and forth between the both of you. “I really don’t know what the hell happened between you two months ago, and I also really don’t care,” he says turning to you, “but I _do_ know it’s affecting you more and more, and I can’t have that. You either get it together or I’m going to send you somewhere. Understood?”

You look away and nod, feeling embarrassed. You’re the only pathetic motherfucker here who’s being threatened by Lester the Molester because obviously Michael the Divine is enjoying life. He’s not busy being some _freak_ who satisfies his fucking urges like you do, apparently. 

“I need a drink,” you cough pathetically. 

“Nothing stronger than water,” Lester mumbles and hands you a cup that was left by the nurse on shift.

It’s lukewarm and has that funny hospital taste, but you drain it like you’ve never had water before. “I doubt anyone’s sneaking anything in here, Chuckles.” Lester mutters something under his breath as he skulks off. You notice his limp is getting a little worse as the days grow on, and you feel sorry for him a bit for dealing with your shit and sigh. 

You turn towards the chair and examine Michael who’s looking back at you like a deer in the headlights. It’s adorable and annoying at the same time. 

“Look, I know this is the part where I’m supposed to thank you for saving me,” you start, “but I don’t need shit from anyone.”

He snorts. “Didn’t look that way from my end.”

“I _don’t_ need shit from _anyone_ ,” you emphasize for him again. “Get it through your thick skull. Lester needs to get it through his too. I was perfectly fine up till that point,” you lie through your teeth, “but shit happens on the job, remember? ‘We take risks,’ you said. I just came to the conclusion that if I take a risk, I don’t care to come back from it.”

The look on his face crumbles into a sad one. “You don’t mean that.”

“Oh, but I do.”

He gets up and moves to the chair Lester was previously residing in next to your bedside and takes your right hand gingerly, trying to be careful of the IV line. “You can’t mean that, Trevor. Whatever the fuck between us, I don’t want you to fucking kill yourself. Jesus Christ, I hear from Lester that you’re back to using crank triple time on top of drinking high proof booze and sleeping in the streets in the fucking cold? And that’s not all?? Why won’t you just _stop_?” He kisses your forehead gently, and you remember when that’s all you wanted in the world, but now it feels hollow like everything else. “Please stop. I’ll make things right.”

You turn away from him. “Don’t make this more difficult than it already is.”

He puts his forehead to yours, just like the old days and whispers, “I don’t know if Lester told you already, but we think Mand is having a little girl, but we’re prepared for a boy or girl, either way. We did the _neutral_ colors shit her friends suggested, so it’s all yellow, orange, and purple, but it took a lot of convincing -- a fucking LOT of convincing because it’s Mandy -- but we got the names narrowed down. If it’s a girl, Tracey, and if it’s a boy, Trevor. You know, for you, either way. To honor you because I love you.”

And it fucking hurts all over again, _dammit_. Your heart hurts so much. A baby for you. 

But it can’t stop the emptiness inside, can’t fill it up, not even the tears. Not the drugs, not the booze, not his love, not anything. Nothing can fill this void except one thing.

You close your eyes and will him away from there so he doesn’t have to see you like this, and so you don’t have to see him and remember the pain of what once was. 

“I just want to die, Mikey. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

* * *

Lester makes good on his word after a talk with Michael. You’re sent to a stress center facility to _recuperate_ \-- the official word to everyone. It doesn’t matter what kind of legal drug bullshit they try to ply you with, it never makes you feel better. You just feel more and more empty, and you definitely feel alone. Lester has only called to check up on you, no one from your current crew gives a shit, and Michael and Amanda had their bundle of joy who is apparently named Tracey and not Trevor on the 11th anniversary of John Lennon’s murder, so they definitely don’t have the time. You do get a letter from them with a picture of the fat pink bundle of rage who looks like her dad which does lift your spirits a little. Your little Tracey. 

But ultimately you hear Amanda’s voice in your head and then your mom’s and your brother’s and your dad’s and the RCAF therapist’s and just a collection of fucking disembodied people chanting that you can’t touch her, you’ll fuck her up because you’re nothing but poison. And then you’re left wondering again, what’s the fucking point?

And the New Year’s comes, and instead of living it up in Michael’s arms for the third year in a row, you’re spending it in a hospital gown, drooling on yourself, waiting for death, while he’s spending it with a newborn life drooling on him. Funny how life keeps working out for you.


	5. It’s OK to Eat Fish Because They Don’t Have Any Feelings/Late 1993

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, it's going to be angsty a bit before it gets happy, but there's bits of happiness sprinkled in. Part one of the long drive home. Was a long chapter so I broke it up. Still working on the second part. 
> 
> Yes, I've been both homeless and kicked from a "stress center," I'm sorry to say. :(
> 
> It's OK to Eat Fish Because They Don't Have Any Feelings is a line from Something in the Way by Nirvana (circa 1992) to which this chapter was written. :)
> 
> "Mormor" is Swedish for maternal grandma if I recall correctly. It's been a while since I lived in Minnesota.

Eventually even Lester’s money can’t keep you in forever, and in the wonderful new era of America, the animals are being freed from their zoos, so you’re out on your ear while the snow is still on the ground, and when you’re barely coherent enough to register what’s going on and not even sure what your name is or what their names are, they drop you with your shit outside the door to the facility, but there’s something deep down inside of you underneath the drug-filled haze courtesy of them that understands that you’ve been through this so many times, that you can do this again because you’re always caring for yourself since no one else does, and you’ll be caring for yourself until someone literally finds your body on the ground one day. So you scramble to get on the little gray windbreaker you own because your mind knows that it’s colder than your mother’s shoulder out here, and you shuffle towards anything that looks warm and inviting. 

Your goddamn pockets don’t even have any money. You check everything again, slowly and meticulously this time. Not even one damn coin! 

Jesus, don’t panic, just don’t panic, you’re out here in the middle of Christ knows where, and they all left you to _fucking die here_ , but everything is going to be just fine, champ! You can ice fish for food. Or dive in those dumpsters. Or steal from someone. There’s plenty of shit you can do. You don’t need anyone to help you. You’ve never needed anyone.

Your mind kicks into self-preservation mode even though it’s a bit rusty at this point, but it still fits like an old pair of pants you’re slipping into. You go to work looking for any kind of newspaper to bulk yourself up with, any kind of blankets or even rugs, and some sort of unoccupied building so you can take refuge from the cold until you can sleep the rest of the shit they shot into your ass out of your system. Hard to think on a groggy mind. Fuck finding food or water, you aren’t going to starve to death anytime soon, and even if you die from thirst, you think you’d welcome it at this point.

After finding a Mom and Pop gas station, you figure out you’re a whole state and several counties away from where you want to be. You’re next door in Minnetonka, so that’s a helluva setback, but the people here are nicer from what you can remember of your foster years, and as long as you play your cards right, you can get everything you need and more. You pilfer a map while no one’s looking and pretend to use the bathroom.

A quick look gives you an idea of at least a local church you can go bum a blanket at. In this weather, they aren’t going to turn you away for one, no matter what you look like. So you stuff the map away in your pocket but not before something slips out onto the floor, and you almost miss it in your haste to get some sleep. 

It’s the letter with little Tracey inside. 

You uncurl it carefully with shaking fingers and wonder again how the fuck they could’ve left you behind here to rot, left you like this. How could he do this to you? Even if he never loved you, didn’t he love you as a friend? As anything at _all_? Would he do this to his own child, _goddamn_!

Sniffling back tears, you quickly wrap it back up and stuff it into a different pocket so it won’t get ruined by the wetness. Then you stuff the thoughts deep into the recesses of your mind for a while. There’s no time to process it all right now. You _have_ to think about basic shit, get a handle on your emotions, cupcake. 

The church isn’t hard to find, thank God or whoever, you mumble to yourself, and someone must be looking out for you somewhere or it’s your lucky day because they have a decent winter coat that fits even if it’s a woman’s -- not that you give a shit, but you accept it without telling _them_ that -- and they have two thermal blankets they can spare. The pastor’s wife gives you two because they’re holy, “no pun intended,” as she says to you without one iota of mirth in her face as she thrusts them in your hands. There’s no gloves, but they have some thick socks, so you use those as mittens and make due. You try to remember your manners as they ask you if you need a warm meal, but you’re not sure if you can withstand company because you’re tired, and you just want to cry, and maybe there’s something in your eyes that says it for you, but the elderly pastor’s wife who’s built like a goalie begins to soften a bit.

“Are you OK, son? Surely you want something nice and hot in your belly, eh?” She puts an arm around your shoulder, and you have to remind yourself that this isn’t your mom. This isn’t old Miss Tremblay the librarian, here to give you a snack and love on you for a bit after your daddy’s beat you again, and your mom is out hooking. This isn’t the lady from child welfare. This isn’t any of them. This is a stranger. You owe her none of your time. 

“I’m not good company right now, ma’am. They tossed me on my ass--” You bite your tongue and wince. “Sorry,” you quickly apologize. “What I mean is they kicked me out of the hospital, and I’m far from home with no money and no way to reach anyone. And I...I haven’t been on my own like this in a long time, and I’m tired from the medicine they gave me at the hospital, and I just want to sleep, but worse than that, I still don’t feel any better than when I went in.”

She considers you carefully. “Which hospital, son?”

You hesitate because you don’t even want to tell her. You’re used to this too. As soon as people find out you have mental issues, they treat you differently or they’re gone. Either way, it’s bad for you. 

“I said which hospital, son?”

“Saint Mary’s in the Woods,” you whisper into sock-covered hands. “I swear I won’t hurt anybody.” She eyes you nervously until you utter the words, “I only wanted to hurt myself.”

She wraps you in her arms, and you wonder briefly if it would be warm and strong to be choked to death by her hands. “Oh, you poor boy! The Lord doesn’t want you to die!” You don’t have the heart to tell her you know that whatever beings there are keep you around for shits and giggles so they can watch you struggle in pain and misery. “Let’s get a bowl of hearty soup in you and some bread, and I’ll see if I can’t get in touch with some of your family while you eat.”

“I don’t know if I have a family,” you return dejectedly, wondering yet again how the fuck you could’ve been left up there. For fuck’s sake, Lester had been calling on a somewhat semi-regular basis. Did they all just give up on you? What the fuck? “My dad is gone, my mom is usually in jail for being a good old-fashioned Biblical whore, my brother is a snot who hates me and everyone else, and then there are my friends who are like family or so I thought,” you finish miserably as she hands you a bowl. As she’s slicing bread and setting out a butter dish, you tell her about as much as you can about Lester, Amanda, Michael, and the baby because they’re the closest thing to family you actually have now, you guess, and also because Lester was the one who set you up in there to get you help, but also because you were just kind of left up there until you were eventually pushed out today. 

The more she listens, the more you get that overprotective grandma vibe you always get from elderly ladies whenever they see your doe eyes. You clear your throat out of embarrassment, so you try to switch gears. “What’s in this? Is this some walleye or perch? I think I’ve only ever had wild rice soup with chicken.”

Her eyes light up for the first time of the night. “Oh no, no, _no_ , that won’t do. I use pickled herring in my soup. I pickle it myself for the winter too and make my own lutefisk just like my mom and mormor did before me.” She takes your bowl and refills it for you happily. “You like it?”

You nod and remember something from childhood; you’re not sure what foster home you plucked this tidbit of knowledge from, but you’re sure it was the one with the foster sister who showed you how to torture animals just enough to make them scared and feel pain so you could release some of yours, but then she showed you that you could also make something scared of you love you again as long as you give it love and affection, and you began to understand how it was that you could still love your parents and brother despite them kicking you every chance they got.

“Someone once told me it’s OK to eat fish because they don’t have any feelings.” You look up at her with a mouthful of soup. “Maybe that’s why everyone thinks it’s OK to leave me behind because they think I don’t have any feelings.” You grin at her. “Maybe someone should just eat me.”

For a brute of a woman, she gasps like a slight one, and she busies herself by cleaning up the kitchen and vacuuming the hallway and entrance area. 

* * *

You enjoy your meal for a while in solitude until her husband nearly scares the shit straight out of you by making his presence known when he puts his huge palm on your left shoulder. Maybe he reminds you of your father or maybe it’s just that air of authority, but you feel sweaty and uneasy. “You managed to both scare and upset my wife.”

“I’m sorry,” you apologize helplessly. God, you’re getting tired of apologizing. 

“Oh, that’s not an easy feat,” he chuckles. “She was the only woman in a family of six brothers, and she was the youngest. She had to help with the farmwork. There were no excuses, and she wouldn’t have had it any other way. So there isn’t much in this life that spooks her.” He sits across from you and looks at you gently but sternly, and you’re suddenly reminded of that guy on PBS. You feel sick to your stomach like you crossed into the wrong fucking neighborhood. “We couldn’t have children. An old war injury left me unable to give her any, and we just never could adopt. It costs more money than we make on a menial pastoral salary, and Olga ended up with a habit of collecting strays over the years.” He gives you a long penetrating look. “You’re a little older than the average stray, but she’s been known to help older people too. Just _don’t_ ,” his tone darkens as his eyes bore straight into yours, “hurt her for being kind enough to help you.”

“Why would I do that?” You hurriedly eat because you feel like this is souring quickly, but the rush of eating and nerves is also making your stomach dance irritably, so you’re having to swallow it back down because the last thing you need to do is puke it up and be on an empty stomach. “Why do you think I would hurt someone who is being so nice to me?”

The older guy settles down and puts back on his easy-going pastor smile. “Good, good. Just can’t be too careful with people we don’t know, especially with them closing down Saint Mary’s.”

You nearly choke on your food. “THAT’S why they kicked me out?”

He nods and points to a local paper with an article you sneak a quick glance at. “Budget cuts all across the nation. They’re closing down a lot of the big private and state hospitals, and they’re sending people straight out onto the streets. It’s left a lot of people out there. No one deserves it, but some are more dangerous than others.” He sighs as he runs his fingers through a patch of thin white hair. “Can’t be too careful.”

You are stuck between wanting to feel sorry for him but also more than slightly pissed that he’d have the audacity to automatically think that you’d be one of them too. There’s no amount of therapy or deep breathing exercises or what whatever the fuck they tried to teach you in the midst of the mind-numbing meds that could ever hope to control the hopelessness, disappointment, and anger that bubbles up in you whenever someone has to point out your mental shit.

His wife comes through with the tightly-wound vacuum and smiles brightly at them both. “You ate it all up! It was good, yes?”

The soup sits in your belly like molten lead now though, and you feel so fucking ill, you just want to reach someone by phone or be on your way, whatever, but you nod strictly out of politeness and offer to do the dishes, but she pshaws you off to the pastor’s office with her husband so you both can use the phone. 

His office is the tiniest fucking space you think you’ve ever been in, and it all feels wrong, and you’re not even on anything besides whatever bullshit Saint Mary’s was giving you, but you’d think your happy ass was tripping balls on acid because you feel so out of place and bigger than the rest of the furniture or it was made for midgets, so when you go to take a seat, you’re transported back to grammar school in your head, and _you just want to use the fucking--_

“Do you have a number handy I can call?”

And you have to think about it. Usually you have these things memorized, but with the haze going through your brain, you’re not sure. You _do_ know Lester won’t pick up from any unrecognized numbers, so he’s out, and that leaves you always coming back to the one person you’re failing so damn hard at running away from. 

You laugh so hard you start to cry.

“Son?”

Hiccuping through nasty sobs, you reply curtly, “Please, _please_ don’t call me son. My name is Trevor. My dad beat the crap out of me nearly every day, and then so did nearly every foster dad I had. I...I just want to be called by my name."

He pauses for a minute, and you’re not sure why, but finally he relents. “I can do that.”

“And I think I have a number on a letter, but it belongs to my best friend, and he’s part of the reason I was at Saint Mary’s,” you mutter. “I’m also not sure of the area code. 

“Well, I have a phone book that can fix the area code situation, but I’m afraid I can’t fix the other problem.” He shakes his head. “My wife says you were there for depression among other things.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you reply sarcastically, “things not right with God.”

He puts a hand on your knee and laughs. “Trevor, we’re all flawed. We all struggle. I saw so many things I wish I could unsee. I _did_ so many things during the war I wish I could erase from my memories, but what’s done is done, and the Lord knows I had to do what I had to do or someone else would’ve filled my shoes for me.”

You move away from him. “You’re not getting it, I’m not talking about that. I have problems with depression because of me, OK? I thought I was OK with being me finally, but I’m not. I just want to forget about it,” you wail into your hands. “It’s all because of Michael.”

It’s quiet for a long while until you the old man’s chair moves, and when you look up, you realize he’s moved away just an inch. Maybe he’s just repositioned himself, you try to tell yourself. Either way, realization has dawned on him. “Does Michael have a family?”

“Y-y-yes. I have a picture of his baby girl. I’m like her honorary uncle.”

“Good, good. It’s not right to break up a family, you know that.”

Something inside you burns. “What about _my_ feelings?? I loved him first!” Fresh, hot tears stream down your reddening cheeks. “I loved him before Amanda did! If she even loves him at all!! And he loved me. I _know_ he did!”

“You may have, Trevor, but he decided. In the end, it’s not what your friend or the Lord wanted.”

“So you’re saying that I’m something that the Lord doesn’t want then.”

“I’m simply saying that perhaps you should work on being an actual friend to your friend since he’s made his decision. If you love something, let it go. You’ve surely heard that, Trevor.”

Snorting, you nod and sigh. “Yeah, and if it loves you, it’ll come back.”

The old man smiles. “The Lord works in mysterious ways or so they tell us.” He picks up the receiver. “Now where’s that letter? We need to make a phone call.” 

You anxiously hand it over with shaking hands, telling yourself you have to do this. It’s the only way to get back, but then part of you wonders why you need to go back. Can’t you just stay here? Be where people are nice to you and maybe even need help from you? Maybe you can just dial it back a bit, stop being you for a while, pretend to be someone else and be normal for a change, settle down with a nice girl. 

You taste it so badly, feel the desire to be like everyone else, the complacency and the comfort it brings with it knowing you can be accepted like that, be a good boy, but then you can also smell the smoke and feel the fire of the mall, hear the whimpers of the puppies as you squeeze too hard and the hisses of the kittens as you hold them up by their tails, but you also can feel the licks of their rough tongues or catch the purring as you stroke their coats and whisper loving words to them under the bridge. You know just how good it feels to shove your cock down a guy’s throat because you’re bored and need something to do, and he’s the something you do. And you know how it feels to meet someone and be hopelessly in love with them and to possibly never be loved back even though you’re constantly used by them, but you feel like you’d go to the ends of the earth to be used by them just so you could be in their presence because they’re the best drug you’ve ever had in your body. 

You’re forever stuck in this hell. Do you just go through life and pretend this it doesn’t hurt, let Michael fuck you over and over again while he fucks Amanda and every other fucking person on the planet, pretend he doesn’t love you or maybe you pretend today he _does_ love you, you become a glorified uncle in some sort of _normal_ life because Michael’s too afraid to step out of his picket fences long enough to be anything other than normal. 

Or do you stay away forever and do something else? Start a new life? Pretend you never knew him or anyone else? What the fuck do you do?

You’re rocking back and forth, mulling over these things as the old man is talking patiently with someone, most likely Amanda because you hear a screaming kid in the background, and then there’s the sound of switching and slight arguing until it stops just as quickly as it started. The pastor quirks an eyebrow at you and puts a finger in front of his mouth, motioning you to be silent as he flicks on a button that must put the office phone on speaker. 

There’s nervous chuckling on the other end. “Sorry about that. The wife is a little overwhelmed by the kids, and she’s been a little irritated lately because the phone has been ringing off the hook.”

Mother of Christ, did he say _kids_ as in plural??

The old man notes your crestfallen look. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Telemarketers are getting worse these days. You can’t get a moment’s peace. If I didn’t need to leave my phone going for my patronage, I’d take it off the hook.”

“Oh no, nah, nothing like that. It’s for work. A friend of mine went missing, and it’s got another friend going nuts, and we’re all kind of worried because...wait, patronage? Pardon my language, but where the hell are you calling from?”

It was the old man’s turn to chuckle. “Well, you see, it turns out that Saint Mary’s closed their doors suddenly, and most of their poor victims were shoved either outside or into shelters. Thankfully, this young man was the former and resourceful because he found his way to our church where my wife and I have been keeping him company.”

“ _Oh thank God_ ,” Michael breathes out, and you hear the relief in his voice. “I...we all were afraid he was dead. It’s so cold out right now. How the fuck...I’m sorry, Father...I’m just...how do they close a place like that and not even warn people? Our other friend was paying for Trevor’s care. They stopped communicating with Lester months ago.”

 _Months_ ago? Exactly _how_ long were you in there?

While the two are chatting, you look around for a calendar for the first time since you’ve been reacquainted with society, and when you find one on the wall, you’re saddened to find out that you weren’t just in there for a few weeks like the haze of your mind told you.

It's starting to wear off because outright panic is starting to set in. It’s like your mind is finally catching up to the rest of you after you’ve taken a bad acid trip. Little nuances start to fuck with you; your nails are just slightly too long, you’ve gotten just a bit thinner, and for the first time since you can remember, you see an honest to God mirror on the wall -- because you can’t trust a crazy person with real glass -- and you notice that your hair is thinning more on top like dear ol’ Pop’s, but the rest of it has gotten way too long. You’re the proud owner of a real honest to God mullet now and not just the slight one you'd had before, and you’re not sure if it suits you or what, but the fact that it’s just suddenly there brings you to hysterical tears. What the fuck literally happened here. Why does this shit keep happening to _you_?

“Trevor?” two men say in unison.

“I...I can’t,” you begin to say you can’t talk because it’s all too much at the moment, the fact that you lost so much time, but you’re also angry that you were literally left in there, like you feel that they would’ve been OK to leave you there the rest of your life, swimming in your own filth and nails and hair, and all you can utter is another long wail of rage and desperation. 

“Mr. Townley -- may I call you Mike, I hope? If I may speak on the behalf of Trevor, he thinks he was left up here and has no one.” You hear him say this to Michael and start to try to calm yourself down somewhat because it’s something you couldn’t get out of your system, yourself.

“WHAT? NO! Trevor, are you there? Can you hear me?? I swear to God we didn’t know, we were just listening to the doctors! Those fucking assholes said you weren’t getting any better, and we didn’t know what to do.” And at that point, you hear him start to cry, and you’ve rarely heard him cry. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again, T.”

Your breaths come in small wheezes and gasps. There’s that part of you again that wants so badly to talk to him, but there’s also that part of you that knows the dark path this leads down, every time. Wouldn’t you be better off just running out that door and never giving him another thought? Or Lester? Jesus Christ, you lost _so much fucking life in there_.

The old man looks at you, crinkled eyes full of concern. “Trevor, what do you want to do? Do you want your friend to come pick you up? I’m sure you have a life and job waiting for you back in North Yankton.”

“Not really. I lost nearly two fucking years,” you mumble bitterly. 

“T, you know it’s not like that," he coaxes. "We’re for life, you and me, and Lester will always have something ready to go. You just have to say the word.”

The old man can see the fear in your eyes though. The fear of being close to Michael, the fear of being Icarus and flying too close to the sun again, and he knows you’ll keep doing it over and over and over because Michael is beautiful like the sun, and you strive to reach out and touch him. The old man just wants to save you from yourself. 

He clears his throat. “It’s your choice, Trevor. You’re welcome to stay here a while and get your bearings, too. I told you my wife loves strays, and we can always use help here around the church. I won’t force anything on you don’t want to do though. I can tell there’s been a lot of that in your life.”

It’s so tempting to stay, but you don’t even have to see Michael to hear the depression in his sighing. You return his sigh and look up apologetically at the old man. “I guess I’m wanted at home. Maybe another time.”

As they’re exchanging pleasantries and addresses and whatever the fuck else people exchange when they’re passing or collecting crazy people turned loose, you sit idly and try not to twiddle your thumbs too much or jerk your knee too hard because you’re a bundle of energy over the thought of Michael coming to pick you up. Will he be alone? Surely to fuck he’ll have Mandy and the baby -- no, you have to remember you clearly heard _kids_ in that fucking conversation -- oh goddamn, how the hell is this all going to go?

The soup and bread are churning in your belly and really want to erupt like a volcano from your mouth onto the maroon carpet. 

After the call has ended, a hand is gently placed onto your shoulder, and you look up in the owner’s understanding eyes. “You know you really don’t have to go, Trevor. I can be right back on that phone. I know they’re giving shell shock another name these days, but I still know it when I see it. You’re afraid to be around him.”

“Can...can I just be honest?” He nods, and you continue. “He’s like a drug. I love him. I’ve never loved anyone like I love him. I think maybe my mother comes second in the line of seeking love and approval, but he’s the first person I’ve ever been in love with.”

“Ahh, the first is always the hardest.”

“I’m not an easy guy to get along with, padre. I don’t want to fall in love with anyone again. This has been hell for me.”

He pats your back as if that’s supposed to be soothing or you’re sharing a joke, but it’s just annoying to you, and you have to bite your tongue to keep from saying something. “You don’t mean that, Trevor. Someone else always comes along. Plenty of fish in the sea.”

“Fish don’t have emotions!” you shout suddenly and jump up, pacing around the room like a lion eyeing its prey. You see your reflection again in the mirror and frown at yourself. “I don’t want emotions! Michael gives me so many fucking emotions, and he thinks it’s OK to make me feel things and feel like I’m important, but then he can push me aside or to the back or forget about me for TWO FUCKING YEARS, but I’ll just be there for him like I always fucking am because I’m a stupid FUCKING _IDIOT_!” You pull back and punch your fist through the mirror, shattering it into many pieces of different shapes and sizes. Blood is pouring from your knuckles and cuts onto the floor, but you’re numb to the pain. Instead, you just feel bad. “I’m so sorry. I’m always screwing things up. I guess it’s a good thing the carpet is maroon.”

Hurried footsteps come stomping down the hallway, and Olga is soon there, obviously wondering what the commotion is. One look at your hand has her uttering prayers and hunting down her First Aid kit. 

“I’m sorry about her mirror.” You sound and feel very much like a little kid right now. 

“It’s just a mirror, son.” You don’t even correct him. “We can buy another one. Do you feel better?”

“No.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“What’s the point?” you moan as you hold your fist to your chest. “He’s coming to get me. I’ve tried to have this talk. Just as much as I can’t stay away from him, he always comes for me. I told you, he’s repressed. He _does_ love me, but he can’t thanks to...you know,” you say and gesture at the Bible on his desk. “Well, that and his upbringing. So we can’t stop. Every time I tell him we have to, that I need to move on, he’s all over me, doesn’t give a flying fuck if he’s cheating on his wife, and of course, she can’t decide if they’re exclusive to each other or what from one minute to the next, so I never know what to expect. I left for a while to get my head on straight, but then I just ended up needing him anyway, and our other friend made me come to Saint Mary’s to get better, but you can see how this has turned ouwwwwww, DAMN!” You hadn’t even noticed that she had returned with her kit, towels, and a bowl of water to rinse your wounds. She’s gently cleansing everything and looking you over for glass. “That smarts.”

“I have to make sure you need no stitches, so be a good boy and be still,” she warns you, and you do grin a bit at the thought of this huge elderly lady beating your ass over some stitching.

“Perhaps you do need to be away for a long while or go start over somewhere else if there’s nothing really holding you there,” the old man muses. “It’s not healthy, whatever it is. Why do you stay?”

You don’t even hesitate to think about it. “Because as much as I need him, he needs me. No one loves me like he loves me, and I love him like no other. Amanda _cares_ for him, but she’d be OK with any two-bit punk who knows how to charm her into the sack and give her anything she asks for. We both grew up in shit childhoods in different necks of the woods, both have daddy and mommy issues, and we both just want someone to look at us with unconditional love even if we’re a failure.” You hiss as she starts to put the iodine on. At least you didn’t need stitches this time. “That’s why I stay. We’re each other’s forever.”

“Then son, you’re going to have to learn to deal with your hate for yourself and him because you’re starting to mix love with hate, and that’s a really bad thing. I’m afraid for you.”

“I know, padre. So am I.”

* * *

You take a nap after your hand is fixed up as well as it gets. It’s about a two hour drive for Michael, and you know it won’t be long before he’s there with how fast he drives even in winter conditions on I-94. You seriously hope he doesn’t have his fucking kids in the car or you’re going to chew his ass out for driving like that. 

Olga can tell you’re a bundle of nerves, so she fixes you a cup of tea -- “ _with something to take the edge off”_ \-- that you swear must be her version of a hot toddy because you’re getting just a wee bit warm drinking this shit, but at least it’s having a sort of calming effect. 

And none too soon as you all hear a car peel into the driveway, and a door slams. Only one, you count to yourself and release the breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding. You’re thankful he didn’t bring her because that’s one less headache you have to deal with, honestly. You’re not even sure how to deal with _him_. 

“I...I...I,” you begin to say, but you’re hushed by Olga’s arm around your shoulder. 

“You are fine. We will talk, eh? It will be OK, you will see,” she says happily and flashes you an uneasy grin, as if she’s not even sure what’s about to happen, but she still has herself attached to you somewhat protectively. 

You wish this woman had been your mother and sigh. 

The old man, whose name you’ve learned is Harold, greets Michael at the entrance door, and you can hear them as they exchange the normal pleasantries and walk towards you. You try to remain steady, but your heart is racing faster and faster, and you feel like a caged bird who needs to be freed. Olga can sense it and draws you closer to her. “Do you need more tea?” she whispers in your ear.

“I need something stronger for this,” you whisper back, and she nods sympathetically.

You keep your focus on the floor and count the footsteps, trying every trick in the book to ground yourself, but instead you’re just reminding yourself that he’s closer, and of course, before you know it, he’s at the frame, looking in at you. 

“Trevor.” He says your name the same way you feel Harold must pray to his god at night. It’s so full of love, worship, and awe. 

_How the fuck did you get left behind??_

He moves toward you, and you think he’s about to sit next to you, but instead he kneels before you, and looks at you -- really looks at you. Then he takes your hands in his and looks up into your eyes. “I don’t know what happened, T, but it wasn’t supposed to go like this. Lester’s looking into it. You know Lester.”

Ahhhh, someone _screwed_ Lester which means they would get even. Well good, Trevor Philips owes several someones for the hell he’s been through. 

But there’s the little kid inside of you who’s been hurt so many times and abandoned so many times, just itching to get out, to be heard, and you, you of all people who wouldn’t think twice these days to put a bullet between someone’s eyes or stuff their balls into a meat grinder, you are having a helluva time struggling to get the words out to explain to your best friend, the man you love, how you feel. 

“W-w-what...what took you...you guys so so long, Michael? Are you sure you didn’t want to just l-leave me there?” You thought you’d cried enough tears this year, but one slips past your radar down the left side of your cheek before you can keep it in check. “I...I was so so so lonely.” 

Olga’s voice hitches next to you, poor old woman. Well, you’ve managed to break this damn stoic Valkyrie several times tonight, shit. She dabs at her eyes with a tissue. Even old Harold tries to look busy at his desk, but you can tell even he’s slightly shaken because he’s read the same page in his Bible over and over again. 

Michael tries to talk, but his voice cracks. “I...God, I’m so sorry, T.”

Your eyes fully come into focus on him for the first time in forever, and you frown in disappointment. “You buzzed your gorgeous black hair off.”

He smiles at you through his tears. “I just needed a change, I guess. The kids were pulling at it all the time.”

“Kids,” you say slowly, still digesting that. “Tracey’s no longer a baby.”

“That’s right,” he acknowledges, his arm resting on your left leg, and the spot is quickly becoming too warm too fast. “We have a little boy now too.”

It dawns on you that he left a woman -- and granted, you’ve not always seen eye to eye, and you think she’d sooner eat your liver than say she’s your friend -- but he left behind a woman with two very young children, and you could be selfish and decide that this is a testament to his devotion for you, but it just reminds you of your acidic father and sours your stomach, and now you’re ashamed of yourself for even hoping that they weren’t there for the ride along.

You move closer to Olga and away from his grasp. “We all need a change, don’t we?”

He looks at you, slightly puzzled but nods. “Yeah, I guess? If you say so. Are you ready to go home?” He moves to get up from the floor and extends out a hand towards you. 

You catch yourself snorting and ignoring his hand, trying hard to avoid his reaction when you do. Home is a hilarious word because you don’t _have_ one. Would that be back out into the streets with the rest of the gutter trash, forgotten? “Yeah, sure. Let me say good-bye first.”

Harold and Olga watch you with worried eyes, but they won’t say it. Older people can feel when something is wrong, it’s like a sixth sense in their bones. You look at them warily but try to grin for their sake to assure them that everything is OK, that you’ll be OK. 

Olga hugs you to her as if she birthed you straight from her womb, and she’s sending you off to war. There’s the haunted, sad look of someone who knows they’ll never see you again, and she’s trying to remain as brave as she was when you first met her, but her lip is quivering just the tiniest bit. She doesn’t speak, but you nod at each other, and after you place a small kiss on her cheek, you know that’s all you can really say to repay the kindness and love she didn’t have to show. 

You go to give Harold a handshake, but he surprises you by pulling you into a hug too and whispers in your ear one more time if you’re sure about this, and even though you’ll never really quite be sure when it comes to Michael, you also know you can’t do without him. It’s like trying to breathe without air. 

Harold clears his old crackled throat one last time before you leave. “Trevor, let me at least leave you with some wisdom the Lord left me.”

You shake your head and groan. “Shoot, old man,” you laugh affectionately. 

“The wise see danger ahead and avoid it, but fools keep going and get into trouble,” he warns, and you’re reminded of the scary prophets of old that come down out of the mountains, like he’s come to predict your future. You shiver involuntarily. But then just as suddenly as he’s said it, his Mr. Rogers' sunny disposition is back, and he smiles lopsidedly. “But above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” He claps you on the back one last time, and you’re gone. 

And as you watch it fade away into the distance, it’s like you were never even there. Or maybe the good part of you still is, being happy with them, being a good boy for Olga, helping to care for the carpets and alters and pews while you settle down for a nice family and give her some grandkids.

And the other part of you scowls at yourself in the side mirror. That’s not you. It could never be you. You can’t even pretend for one minute you could be OK with a kid. You’re not even sure how you’re going to be OK with Michael’s snotty brats. You barely tolerated Ryan on most days and stayed away from most of your foster siblings, except for the few rare ones who interested you because they wouldn’t leave you alone.

You sigh loudly, due in part to anxiety over knowing he wants to talk but doesn’t know how to get a conversation going with you, and also in part over boredom and just wanting to get this over with. It’s a little over two hours till quote unquote _home_ , so you suppose you need to figure out where the fuck he thinks that is. “Mike--”

“Trev--”

“So.”

“When the fuck did you start calling me _Mike_?” He side-eyes you angrily.

You shrug nonchalantly, looking out the window at snow and old farmhouses, planning possible escape routes if need be. “Well, I figure I should have the day you married Amanda. And you really should watch the fucking road. It’s slick out here, and you left her to watch kids in diapers for a has-been ex-fling who you still can’t decide about. It would be shitty if we died, and she’d be stuck raising them by herself.”

He grips the steering wheel even tighter, and you bite your tongue. Why does he always have to have such a short damn fuse, Christ Almighty. “Amanda is fine. The kids are _fine_. Everything will be FINE.”

“Are you trying to convince me of that, cupcake, or yourself?”

“Fucking fuck, T,” he curses as he lowers his head into the steering column but not completely cutting off his vision. “Why did I come for you if it’s going to be like this?”

“I don’t know, _Mikey_ , why did you?” you spit back hotly. “You all seemed perfectly fine to leave me there to rot, ya know.”

“That’s not the truth!”

“Then why didn’t you visit or call or write at least ONCE, dammit?” you cry out, banging the window with your hand. Thankfully, it doesn’t break the glass or damage your already bandaged hand. “DO YOU _UNDERSTAND_ HOW THAT FEELS?”

The car comes to a halt at the side of the interstate, and Michael looks at you, eyes full of raw sorrow. “I don’t, but dammit, I’m _sorry_ , Trevor! A lot of this was beyond my control! Lester said he was ‘working on it,’ but I never knew what that _meant_.”

Your anger is starting to bubble over now. All of his shit sounds like another rehash of the same excuses people have been feeding you your whole life. “It never occurred to you to check into it _yourself_? For fuck’s sake, Michael, if it had been you, I would’ve been there in a heartbeat!”

“YOU DON’T HAVE A FAMILY TO PROVIDE FOR NOW!” His words hit you like a wall of solid steel, ever that constant niggling reminder. He’s huffing and puffing, but he starts to suck in deep breaths, so at least someone’s obviously been working on his temper with him. “I’m sorry, T. I didn’t mean like that. I just mean that I need more money now, so I’ve been taking job after job to support us. Mandy’s shopping sprees and lifestyle expectations are already an expensive habit, but when you add kids in the mix…,” he trails off. “We aren’t talking a whole lot right now. She’s not exactly a fucking joy to be around, Tracey’s going through the terrible twos or whatever, Jimmy doesn’t do much beyond eat, fart, and shit still.” He sighs long and hard. “I wasn’t cut out for this shit. This is why I didn’t want to do this shit. I swear I was careful with her, so I still don’t know how we ended up with Tracey.”

Not your problem, not your problem, keep echoing that to yourself. Why is he trying to make you still care, holy _fuck_. They all literally intended to leave you behind, they may as well be your goddamn blood relation. 

“I don’t even know if she’s _mine_ , Trevor.”

Oh wait... _this_ , this piques your interest. “Huh.”

“Her hair is blond. Very blond.”

You can’t help the violent giggles that burst through. Oh sweet Jesus, you feel like karma reigned mighty in the Townley household for ol’ Mikey kicking you square in the heart and balls. “She always did go after what was in that dumbfuck Brad’s pants first, didn’t she?”

“Yeah, laugh up my misery, asshole,” he quips sarcastically while lighting up a Redwood with shaking fingers. “I thought you’d be happy.”

“How’s that?”

“I’ve come to a decision.” He takes a long draw and lets the smoke roll before exhaling slowly. You haven’t seen him do that in so long, and there’s something exciting and damning in that one action, you can feel saliva pooling at the corners of your mouth in both anticipation and worry. “If she can fuck around, so can I. As long as it’s safe, as long as there’s no more kids running around, what does it hurt, right?” He looks to you for approval. “Right?”

A hand slides up your tattered corduroys, hopeful and longing, towards the inside of your crotch inseam. 

You start to shake from both fear and desire. It would be so much easier if you could just rid yourself of feelings completely. _Be the fish_ , _eat yourself_. 

You gingerly take his hand in yours and remove it. “I...I can’t, Mike. I want you more than I can even put into words, but I can’t keep doing this. It’s fucking with my head.”

He first looks at you, completely awestruck, and then his cheeks puff up and shake as if you told him Santa shits coal and stuffs it in his stocking for Christmas. Finally, his whole face reddens, and you see a side you wonder briefly if Amanda gets to see often. 

And if so, you think you feel sorry for her. 

“WHAT THE GODDAMN FUCK, TREVOR,” he yells and slaps the dashboard frustratedly. “I give you what the fuck you WANT, and you’re just as bad as her! Jesus, you wanna stomp on my balls too like she does when she doesn’t get it exactly the WAY she wants it??” He grabs the wheel and yanks it back and forth. “Why don’t I get anything _I_ want?”

You feel like you’re watching yourself explode now, and it’s somewhat amusing but also tiring. “But what is it you want?”

“I DON’T KNOW! NO ONE EVER CARES TO ASK!” You both sit in silence for several minutes while he calms himself, and just as you’re starting to think it’s a little too eerily quiet for you, he laughs softly out of nowhere. “I want a lot. I want to do something with my life. I don’t always want to be doing this shit. I...I know it sounds stupid, but I _really_ like movies and want to do something with them. I want a nice house. I want Amanda there.” He takes your bandaged hand in his and kisses it. “I want you.”

“I don’t think Amanda has that whole picture in mind, sugar, or at least not the part with me in it,” you say sadly. “It’s a beautiful dream, Mike, but I think I need to get my head on straight, and I can’t do that if I’m always wishing you were with me instead of her at night.” God, this is so hard. Why are you choking up? It was so fucking easy in your head.

When you look over at him, you see he’s crying too. Jesus Christ, you’ve broken him. What the fuck is wrong with you?

“T, _please_.” He’s practically reduced to begging and sobbing now. You’ve _never_ heard him like this, ever, not for anything or anyone, holy fuck. Giant blobs of salty goo are melting down his cheeks and nostrils in one big mess of gross disaster, and he's usually so meticulous, but he doesn't even give a shit to wipe himself at the moment. You've never seen anything like it, and you're not sure you will again. “I’ll do anything, fucking _anything_ , man. Please don’t do this,” he whispers. “You don’t know how bad it’s been. Mandy and I don’t talk not just because I’m working a lot.”

You look at him and wait for an answer. 

“I’ve been drinking...a lot. Since you’ve been gone,” he confesses. “It started the day you left the trailer.”

“Jesus, Mike.”

He thrusts himself at your coat and pulls on it in desperation. “STOP IT! Stop calling me that! I just want to hear you call me Mikey again, _please_ , Trev! I’ve waited so fucking long for you to hold me and call me that again,” he cries and throws himself against you in a heap of despair.

You don’t have the heart to tell him to stop. Because deep down, you’re wailing with him. You want to reach out and console him, kiss him, fuck him until everything is right again in the world. 

But on the surface, you’ve gobbled up your emotions and swallowed them until you can barely register them because that’s how you’ve always had to do when you’re stuck in survival mode. That’s all you’ve ever known. That’s all people have ever let you know.


	6. You’re My Best Friend But It’s Truly, Truly a Sin (Part 2 of Late 1993)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part Two of the long car ride home from Minnetonka back to North Yankton. Trevor meets Tracey for the first time. 
> 
> Chapter title and inspiration from chapter come from The Velvet Underground's Pale Blue Eyes. Lou Reed <3

This isn’t the most silent trip you’ve ever taken, but it’s definitely becoming the most awkward by far with Michael sniffling here and there, wiping his nose with his coat sleeve every once in a few minutes just to remind you that he’s still functioning besides driving the car on autopilot. He’s been crying bitch tears in little hushed tones and half-snorts since he resumed his course, and you seriously don’t recall a time he’s ever been like this. You haven’t spoken at all; some in part due to how you feel about having to return home so soon when you still don’t have your own shit worked out, but also in part because you’re starting to panic that you’ve broken him permanently, and despite how you feel, you don’t want to fuck him up like you. He’s of no use to anyone like this, so you’re literally racking yours trying to figure out what to do. 

You adjust yourself in your seat so you can get a good look at him and notice with his new shorter cut, he doesn’t look bad at all. He’s got a certain military flair going for him right now, and it makes your cock twitch a bit to recall anything relating to special forces. For fuck’s sake, why are you such as sucker for assholes in uniform and their goddamn superiority complexes?

Michael notices you shifting slightly, trying to readjust something that’s starting to become just a tad fucking uncomfortable, and he grabs your hand slowly, hesitantly, as if you two are fucking virgins, and this is afterprom. “I...I can help with that, T.” You watch him stare ahead at the road and notice as his Adam’s apple nervously bobbles up and down from gulping. “If you want, that is.”

You let out a ragged sigh. OK, let’s really think about this. You’ve probably got a good forty minutes till _home_ or whatever the fuck it is now, and you could just tell him that you’ll wait to find a hole to fuck in an alley there that’s attached to something slightly more caring than him, but he’s also right here and soft and smelling so good and just feeling so familiar and safe.

And you’ve never been able to look in his eyes and say no. 

He’s pulling off the highway and down a long country road that’s dead this time of night before you even have a chance to complete that thought, and then he surprises you again by pouring himself over you in your seat and nearly knocking you senseless with kisses here, licks there, sucking in just the right spots. And the icing on the cake comes when he pulls your zipper down.

“W-what are you doing?” Where the fuck did _this_ Michael Townley come waltzing in from? This isn’t going anywhere _near_ how things usually go. 

But maybe you shouldn’t complain. You _really_ like where this is going.

His face turns a pretty shade of rosy pink over his fair skin, and he averts his gaze as he mumbles, “Just doing stuff, OK? Shimmy outta this shit a little, will ya?”

So you decide to help him out -- after initially thinking it’s probably a bad idea -- because, fuck it, you’re horny as all get out, and it’s _reeeeallllyyy_ looking like you’re going to get _your_ dick sucked for once, and you wouldn’t want to miss this for the world. You’ve always wanted to see Mikey’s lips wrapped around you, hear his grunts, maybe push him past his limits a bit and see his gag reflex...you know you aren’t the biggest sailor in the fleet, but you know you’re still a decent one. You wonder with a hint of a smile if he’s going to balk at your girth or if he’s going to secretly like it. 

With corduroys and underwear pooled around your ankles, you watch in fascination as he works you slowly, almost like he’s savoring the taste, and this is pure torture, you think, as he eases down the length of you without one noticeable sound except a small hum which is your only indicator so far that he’s enjoying himself. “Jesus fuck, where did you learn to do that while I was gone?”

The instance it’s out of your mouth, you wish you hadn’t said it. Images of him with other guys dance in your mind no matter how much you try to will them away, and you think to yourself that maybe that’s really why he didn’t want to be around. Maybe he really did need a break from your bullshit, and it was never about getting you help or Amanda wanting more time with him or whatever cockamamie shit he tried to sell you before. 

Just as you’re about to pull away and tell him to stop, he pulls away from you with a small _pop_ and with a somewhat shy mutter -- Michael Townley, _shy_? -- that he practiced on one of Amanda’s toys and by watching porn. 

You really don’t know how to process that. You were used to things being simple, cut and dry. Black and white. Michael’s always been the guy who does the fucking, you’ve always been the one receiving the fucking; that’s just how it’s _always_ been with you. What the fuck is going on here?

“Why? Why would you do that, Mike? Aren’t you happy with how shit is?”

With your dick still firmly in his hand, he starts to get frustrated and yanks a bit, making you hiss in both pain and pleasure. “Why the fuck does everything have to stay the same? Maybe I’d be happier with something else. Maybe...maybe I want to suck you sometimes.” Pale blue oceans meet warm brown earth in a storm of vulnerability as he tries to say with false bravado, “Maybe I want _you_ to fuck _me_ sometimes, OK??”

You’ve forgotten how to breathe. You’re pretty sure your decrepit heart has fallen somewhere into your belly after thudding heavily against your chest. You’ve never even thought about this, not between the both of you. “For fuck’s sake, Mike, why _now_? We’ve never done it like this.” You hurriedly add because holy _goddamn_ you’re _not_ going to ruin the mood if you can help it, “N-n-not to say I haven’t dreamed about fucking your gorgeous ass, but I...I just didn’t think you liked that. You’ve never said anything.”

He gives your slightly fading erection a nice long lick from the base to the tip and then grins like a fucking tease. “I was kinda afraid to think about it for a long time because...you know, Pop,” he sighs, referring to his abusive asshole dad, one of those many things you share in common. “It’s that rule around here, ya know. ‘As long as you’re doing the fucking and not being fucked, it ain’t gay.’”

“Jesus Christ.” You shoot him a withering glare. “Real fucking nice.”

He shakes his head, brushing the skin of your shaft with his smooth cheek, and you sigh contentedly, noticing how nice that feels. “Nah, I know that’s shitty, but it’s...it’s just hardwired, T. But one of the nights I got really fucking drunk, I must’ve said something to Amanda,” he says, and the blush on his face grows as red as the woolen ski cap on his head. “She told me the next day that she fucked me with one of her toys, and I came buckets. Said I screamed like a girl too,” he whispers, hot with embarrassment. “I...I don’t know. I was so fucking plastered, I don’t remember. I’m kinda too nervous to ask her again because I don’t want her to think the wrong shit, but...but I want to know how it feels.” He fiddles with the hem of your shirt, trying to look anywhere but you as he contemplates his next words. “I...I want to feel how I make you feel.” 

Then he gazes up into your eyes, and Jesus, how are you supposed to stay mad at him? How are you supposed to stay away? You could cum just by looking at him, seeing how gorgeous he is against the moonlight. You can cum just by thinking about this moment. And you know you will. You’ll replay it many times after tonight, when things go wrong or even when things go right -- you’ll remember this moment when Michael Townley was vulnerable and scared and beautiful and in love with you even if he didn’t always acknowledge it, and that’s just how you knew you’d never let him go. 

Like you told the old man, you can’t quit him. Whatever gods there are, may they help you.

Your thumb moves of its own accord and reaches for his face, touches his cheek, rubs his lips which he opens greedily to suck it in, and the wetness and heat are almost your undoing then. “Mikey,” you ground out feverishly. 

“There it is,” he mumbles around you and smiles.

You pick up on that. So it’s _not_ just you who’s needy around here. You knew you weren’t imagining things. Maybe he wasn’t showing it like this before, but like you told Harold, Michael always has a way of coming back to you, of finding you even if you don’t _want_ to be found. It’s never been easy the other way, much to your and even Lester’s annoyance. He could take off for weeks on a job and be on radio silence, and if he didn’t want to be found out, he wouldn’t be, but somehow, someway, he always makes sure he finds others when he’s good and ready to find them. 

Well, two can play this game. You can give him what he wants, if that’s what he wants. It’s harmless enough. He’s probably not getting enough attention at home as it is between having a toddler, newborn, and a sometimes bitchy wife trying to recover from all of it. 

“Poor Mikey,” you soothe sympathetically as you stroke his soft scalp with your hand. The feeling is different for you, and you miss his hair, but it’s also ticklish and nice, so you can get used to it. “Did you miss my attention? Is that what you’re bitching about?”

He nods but continues to bob up and down on you as if you’re the only thing that can sate his hunger. Goddamn, you knew he wasn’t a slacker in school or so he’s always bragging, and this definitely has to prove some of it if he learned this just by practice and watching videos. No wonder he made All-State, holy fuck. 

“Mikey,” you whisper breathlessly, “you’d better cut that shit out or this is gonna end shorter than either one of us want it to, ya dig?”

Michael ends with a long slurp and has the good graces to look sheepish before he apologizes. “I didn’t think it would be _that_ good.”

“Oh, you definitely always go all out, whatever you do,” you gush and puff him up a bit, watching him smile widely. You don’t know why it warms you up so much inside to see him feel good, but it does. You pull him up towards you. “Now I think you were wanting something, right?”

He nervously ducks his head against your shoulder. “Trev, I’m scared, man. What if I need to be drunk? What if she lied to me as a joke?” he worries and bites angrily at a hanging thumbnail. “‘Or what if I don’t like it?” He stops suddenly, tenses up, and shivers. “What if I like it _too much_? Does it make me gay? Do...do I have to get divorced? What the fuck do I do here?” he panics.

You try to take him seriously and not laugh in his face, but when you open your mouth, the only thing that comes out _is_ laughter. “Holy shit, I’m never getting married. Fuck this.”

He pulls back quickly in annoyance and looks at you like he’s either going to strangle you or slap you, and either one is amusing to you and has you howling. “Knock it off, Trevor! I’m being serious! I’m never being this deep with you again, you fucking nutjob!” 

He goes to move off your lap, but you wrap your arms around his waist and try to get a hold on yourself. “Sorry, sorry...you’re just thinking about it all way too much. You need to calm down. One, you’re already married with rugrats. Unless you’re that miserable, what would be the point? Divorces are messy. Amanda already takes you to the cleaners, and you’re not even divorced yet, so I’d stick that shit out. What the hell happened to you both being “free spirits” or swingers or whatever the fuck bullshit she was spinning a long time ago?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. Works if it’s only her doing it, I guess? She put that away when she got pregnant the first time, remember?”

Oh, yeah. How you wish you could fucking forget that. “Well, maybe you need to have a talk about that because she was fucking everything with a pulse at one point, and I doubt that kids have slowed her down that much. If she was actually keeping you happy, you wouldn’t be busy knocking at my door.”

He grimaces, and you wonder if there’s something more to it he’s not telling you, but you decide against prodding him because that always tends to clam him up, and really, you’re just about getting rid of this raging hard on right now instead of thinking about things best left alone in the dark. So you carry on to your other point. “Two, even if you decided, ‘hey, it’s all hairy dick and ball sweat here on out,’ it’s not like you can go run out and get attached to anyone. Relationships aren’t any better on this end or has being with Amanda fried your brain of your memories?” you reminisce sadly. “Not only do you get to deal with raging assholes like my oh so wonderful brother and his friends, but guys can also fuck you up too, and you find yourself in bars drinking away your feelings or in alleys fucking them away with random strangers after you’ve tried to melt them away in your veins, and when that doesn’t work, you’ll wish you were dead so you try that next,” you end icily.

He’s doe-eyed with recognition as he looks at you. “That’s...that’s how it was, wasn’t it?” he asks no one in particular in the smallest voice he can register. “That’s what it was like for you.”

You let out a crazy high-pitched laugh, wishing you could kick yourself in the ass for taking this conversation down the wrong path. Fucking fuck, you were supposed to be having fun here, goddamn. “Nah! Hell nah, I’ve mostly gotten over it. Mostly.”

He shakes his head. “No, Trevor. No, you haven’t.” His head sinks against your chest. “Jesus Christ, what the fuck is wrong with me? Why am I doing this?”

You wiggle your eyebrows suggestively at him, hoping to get him to shut the fuck up because you know exactly where this melancholy Michael bullshit is going once he gets going. Dammit, you just wanted some fun after being a drooling, filthy mess for the last two years, and he’s ruining it by having a sort of extensional crisis, fuckshitsakes. “C’mon Mikey, it’s no big deal. You’re overthinking shit again.” You murmur into his ear, “Just keep doing what you were doing, sugar, _please_. I don’t want to stop.”

“But you _should_ want to stop, Trevor, Jesus,” he whines, throwing his head into his hands dramatically, and unfortunately, his body grinds deliciously against you while he wiggles, so this display is doing nothing to stop the need that’s taken root. If anything, some of the shit he’s admitted ever since he said _fuck_ , _by_ , and _you_ earlier has you so fucking hot that there’s no way you can stop the storm of emotions building. You’ve only fantasized up until now, but you’re seriously a stronger grip away from thinking about taking what you want if he won’t give it willingly, and you’re kind of repulsed by your thoughts, but you’re so turned on, you’re also panting heavily. 

And you haven’t been listening to a word he’s been saying, shit. 

“Are you even listening to me??” He looks at you oddly. “What the hell is wrong with you?” 

“What the fuck do you think is wrong with me?” you choke out. “I haven’t even so much as jerked the goddamn gherkin thanks to being sedated twenty-four/seven, and it wasn’t even the Ramones good kind! Then you hop up on me with your sexy ass and tell me all the things I’ve waited to hear since we set eyes on each other, so what the fuck do you think is wrong with me?” You pull his hand to your chest and let him feel your frenzied heartbeat for once. “That’s what’s wrong. That’s what you do to me. It’s not just about what’s down there, you fucking idiot.”

“I never meant to hurt you like that, T,” he says softly. “You’re my best friend above all else. I care about you.”

You groan and feel like you’re running a fucking marathon in circles at this point, but fuck it all. If this is all you’ll ever get, you’ll follow this man to the bowels of Hell or even break into Heaven just to steal him back. This has to be good enough. Even if it hurts. Just as you told him, you were also telling yourself: there’s no marriage for you, and you don’t love anyone else. Not like this. And you probably never will.

You swallow your emotions and grin at him, pretend to be good ol’ fun fuck buddy Trev again with the jokes. “And I’m glad someone does because I sure as shit don’t care about me. Anyway, are we getting this show on the road or what? Unless you like being an exhibitionist.”

“Holy fuck, you’re a piece of work,” Michael laughs a little, and you sigh in relief internally at his change of mood. “Yeah, just give me a minute, OK? Sorry, but realizing I ruined someone’s life tends to be a mood killer for me.”

“Stop that, you fuck,” you snap at him irritably. “You didn’t ruin my life. I was ruined long before you ran into me.”

“T--”

He looks so sad, so you close your eyes and lean back into the seat. “What? It’s the truth, OK? I’m fucked up. You’re the only fucking person who actually cares about me besides the two old people we just left, and they didn’t know me long enough to hate me.” You bite your lower lip, trying to keep those fucking emotions at bay and bury them back down where they belong. “I don’t even know why you care. You shouldn’t. You have a fucking wife and kids. No one in their right mind should want to be with me.”

A hand slides gently, coolly along the left side of your face, and a warm kiss is placed on your forehead. “Who says I’m in my right mind?”

Your body betrays you with a whimper. “Why are you doing this to me? Why won’t you let me just walk away, Mike? I should just walk away from all of this before this ends badly for the both of us. You have a family who needs you, and I’m...I’m,” you swallow heavily, finally admitting to him, “I’m nothing more than a fun time.” Your head dips against your chest; disgust courses through your body, and on its backside, depression. You really didn’t want to go down this path again tonight, but here you are just like always.

Strong arms wrap around you so tenderly, it leaves you astonished and almost makes you laugh. “Trevor, you’ll always be more to me than that, and you know it.”

“ _How_ do I know it? How am I supposed to _know_ anything?” Your emotions are dangerously close to bubbling over. How the fuck does he do that to you? Why can’t you just feel nothing when he’s around, _dammit_?? He’s no different than any other potential hole out there, waiting to be used. Why do you have to attach so much emotion to this one, fucking shit fucker!!

“Let me show you,” he purrs into your left ear and begins to try to work himself onto you. You stare in awe, lust, and horror altogether, thinking -- somewhat self-deprecatingly -- to yourself that Amanda’s dildo must’ve been a bit bigger than you, at least, for him to not have to work himself that much, but you also realize he came prepared for this because there’s fucking lube next to the e-brake. 

_Oh sweet mother of Christ he feels so good, is this what Heaven feels like?_

And before you can help yourself, you’re a jumbled mess of raw nerves. You feel everything SO much, and you can’t help but think this must be what it’s like to have your virginity taken by someone you love. 

The tears start pouring down your face, and you clutch him to your sobbing form. 

“T, hey...hey,” he nudges you as he places kisses anywhere you have an exposed spot around your face. “Whassa matter? Do you want to stop?”

You shake your head because FUCK NO, you haven’t even started yet, but you’re just so overwhelmed, and you know this isn’t going to amount to shit because he’s just going to go home afterward. 

You don’t want this to ever end. 

He starts to slowly test the waters after he’s let himself stretch for a bit, and you watch his face screw up in concentration like he’s trying to figure something out or he’s in pain, you’re not one hundred percent sure, when it dawns on you what’s going on, and you grab his hips, helping to angle him better so you’re hitting that sweet spot just right, and fucking _dammit_ , Amanda was right and got to learn about another thing before you did because he’s downright squealing and moaning loud enough to wake the whole damn countryside, and it’s so fucking hot, but it’s also pissing you off so _fucking much right now_. 

“WHY, MICHAEL!” you yell, tears streaming from your face and you fuck him as hard as you think he can take, and you just somehow know he can because he can definitely give it just as hard. “WHYWHY _WHY_!”

“Oh holy fuck, T! Don’t fucking stop, _please_!” he whines as he helps to ram himself down onto you while pumping himself madly like he’s looking to gain momentum towards his release. “ _Please_!!”

" _Please_!” you mock sarcastically. “I’d do this every fucking day of the week whenever you asked, and you _know_ it, but you let that stupid cunt have first dibs, so why?? What does she have that I don’t, Mike?? I’ll get tits too if they’re that goddamn special! So why??” You start to cry as you usher both him and yourself into an intense orgasm that he screams from. “It was supposed to be you and me, Mikey! It was _always_ supposed to be you and me!”

He looks at you, face glowing with that fresh fucked look, but you can see the hint of tears glistening, threatening to spill. He leans in and slips his tongue in your mouth, and there’s the wondrous tastes of mint, coffee, whiskey, and possibly your dick filling your senses as you both kiss deeply. When he pulls back, he smiles sadly. “It’s like you said. But we got this, right? We can do this.” He sounds like he’s reassuring himself more than you. 

“I can’t play second fiddle to Amanda, nope.” You look out the window and notice it’s snowing again. You’d best get moving because this shit can collect quickly or become whiteouts even quicker. “I realized at some point that as much as I love you, I can’t just sit around and play your fucking mistress in waiting or whatever the hell this is.”

Michael climbs off you and sighs. “You’re not my goddamn mistress for fuck’s sake.” He struggles to put his shirt back on because the car is absolutely fucking freezing in the night air now, and you move to help him guide his arms through the holes. “I don’t know what you want to be called, OK? All I know is that I was fucking miserable while you were gone. Just ask Lester if you don’t believe me. I worried about you all of the damn time.”

You nod to yourself. “Oh yes, I seem to recall it coming up in a few conversations about how clingy you are.”

“Fuck you,” he starts to cackle, and you actually find yourself joining in after a minute.

After about five minutes of silence where you both try to clean yourselves up using a dirty towel he had stuffed in the backseat of the Esperanto left around for working on the car -- and the piece of shit needed it often -- and stuffing yourselves back into clothes, you think you’ve done enough contemplation for a lifetime or a least a while, anyway, and you turn to him, grabbing his hand in yours. As you look at them together, you’re reminded of the first time you did this and how his hand engulfs yours and how safe you felt in that moment. “Let’s look at it this way. You’re already married. I’m your best friend. But I need you, and you seem to need me, right?” 

He nods but his gaze never wavers from his lap for some reason, and that worries you a bit. Just another “what the fuck is going on now” to file away for another day, you suppose. You think you have a whole closet full of these in your head by now to go through. One day you’ll get to them. Just keep telling yourself that.

You sigh. “So we stay the same. We have fun. We do shit. No one else has to know.”

“No one else has to know,” he agrees and brings your hand to his lips to kiss it. You’re not completely sure if you’re just relishing his touch or shivering because you hate yourself for doing this shit to yourself yet again. 

“But I’m not playing second fiddle, Michael. Waiting on you is killing me. I’m not waiting anymore.”

He starts the car and grinds the starter just a wee bit hard as he also grinds his teeth. “Just what the fuck is that supposed to mean.”

Is he actually fucking jealous? Jesus Tapdancing Hallelujah Christ. You’ve tried to make him jealous in the past, and he never gave you a passing thought, but _now_ he’s mad? “I’m not exclusive is what the fuck that means. If I feel like fucking other people, I’m fucking other people.” You grin widely at him, intentionally rubbing salt in the wound. “You know, like you do all the time without a thought for me or Amanda.”

His eyes widen in surprise, and he nearly chokes on his own phlegm. You clap him on the back a few times until the coughing dies down. “W-what the fuck ever, Trevor. Fucking asshole,” he mumbles as he pulls back onto the lonely road and drives toward the highway. 

You chuckle to yourself as you settle back into your seat and wrap your coat closer to you. You love the man, but fuck him if he doesn’t think he deserves that shot just a little bit. Fucking jealous hypocritical wiseass.

But you’re a fucking hypocrite too. You can’t be fuck buddies with him, and you know it. Needy or not. And here you are, right back at this shit. 

You’re going to need to get fucked up soon, you realize as you yawn to yourself as you close your eyes and try to get some sleep for the last leg of the trip. 

* * *

Either the weather worsened or Michael slowed down dramatically so you could actually manage to get more than forty minutes of sleep. You recall waking up from a rather nasty dream at one point where you were back with the old folks, and Harold was telling you that sinning is OK as long as you were doing it out of love, but then the tone of the dream changed, and it was your mother screaming at you that you were living in sin, so that woke you with a scream. So much so that Michael pulled over just to check on you. But you assured him it was nothing without really telling him what the fuck it was because there was no fucking way in any hell you were telling him about all of that. And you fell into an uneasy sleep after that. 

Before you know it, you’re being shaken awake gently, and he’s calling your name. “Trev, wake up. We’re at the house.”

Even as fuzzy as your brain is right now, you don’t fail to notice he doesn’t say _home_. That saddens the fuck out of you so much, and it really shouldn’t at this point. Shouldn’t you be used to this?

You brush him away. “Yeah, yeah. I’m getting up. Keep your panties on.”

He laughs and leaves you alone after that. There’s a happy skip in his step as he races towards the trailer, and you hear him call out to Amanda that you’re home. Something about him saying home to Amanda at least makes you feel a little better. Just slightly. 

Her unkempt brunette head peers from out of the front door and yells out at you with what appears to be a bundle in her arms. That must be the boy you’ve heard about. It’s all still so surreal. “Why are you in the car, Trevor? Hurry up and get inside! It’s freezing out here in case you hadn’t noticed!” 

“Jesus Christ! I just woke up, woman! I already told that slavedriver that I’m getting up!”

“Language! Tracey’s starting to pick up stuff!” is the last thing you hear her say before the door bangs behind her. 

How the fuck did you let yourself get talked into this mess. You don’t want to be around kids. You probably _shouldn’t_. Hell, she didn’t even want you around Tracey before, so what changed?

“Michael, don’t you dare take her out like that!” you hear faintly from inside.

“It’s just for a damn minute, geez! He’s coming inside!” 

Michael walks outside with this little pink-faced angel in two little pigtails and thick yellow pajamas with kitten faces all over them clutching to him, riding on his hip, and it suddenly doesn’t matter if she’s actually Michael’s or not. There are blondes in your family, and you almost find yourself pretending she’s yours.

Then she reaches out her little hands towards you, and you’re fucking enthralled, _enraptured_ by this creature. You take her in your arms, and she is so warm and smells like that fresh smell when babies take baths. “Hello, little princess. I’m Uncle Trevor.”

You walk inside with her and sit down on a chair, and Amanda looks on nervously at first but then relaxes and begins to feed the baby in her arms. Michael just stares with the biggest fucking smile and something akin to love in his eyes while you bounce her on your knee, and she giggles and claps. “More, Unc’a! More!” 

You smile brightly at her cute little pudgy face and promise to yourself that you would die for this kid. Either of these kids. Simply because they’re _his_. You already love them.

And when you go to sleep on their fold-out couch that night, it’s way too easy to pretend that these kids are yours and his. You try so hard not to, but your thoughts head down that awful path, and you wonder what he would do if Amanda were ever out of the picture, but then you find yourself hating that you could ever even think shit like that in the darkest hours of the night.


	7. She’s a Pretty Thing and She Knows Everything But I’m Already Somebody’s Baby (Early 1994)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title taken from Elliott Smith's Twilight with love. <3 
> 
> Amanda-centric for a reason, setting up for the future. :)
> 
> Thank you for the feedback too, I'm glad it's been positive, but I'll take any feedback I can get because I'm looking to write an actual book based along similar lines (minus the crime lol) and need any critique. :)

Life carries on easily for a while, and you’re actually surprised when you aren’t tossed out on your ear or expected to find a motel to shack up in. You have a suspicious feeling that it’s because Amanda is tired of being stuck with two screaming kids by herself most days, and you’re still not considered _well_ enough to be of much use to anyone, so you try to make yourself as either scarce as you can so she won’t grow tired of you or you help out doing menial bullshit that bores you half to death like you used to do for your mother, but thank holy fuck you at least have drugs to fall back on as an adult to alleviate the boredom of that. Somewhat. 

The bad part of crank is the crazy horniness you experience, and it’s hard to just whip it out with the brats about, and they ruin the mood half of time anyway as much as you love them. And Michael has been gone for a rather long time, but you knew they were going somewhere in South Yankton this time around, on the southwestern border, something big. Like a precious metals mining company or some shit that Lester had his four eyes on. So you figure it’s still going to be a while. 

Well, this is starting to suck.

You’ve been outside with the blond gremlin, showing her how to make snow angels, you’ve helped her make an anatomically-correct snowwoman with huge knockers -- OK, so you did most of the work there, but she still had fun -- and Amanda greets you both at the door where you switch children, and Jimmy snoozes happily in your arms while Tracey gets into a flannel nightgown and help with her nightly rituals before being sent off to bed. 

You don’t even realize you’ve dozed off until you feel the baby being plucked from your arms, and you instinctively pull him closer.

“Trevor, it’s OK. I’m just putting him in the crib. He’s asleep,” Amanda whispers at your side. You babble something incoherently, barely even acknowledging her because dammit, you were in a good Michael-filled dream, and you shut your eyes. 

The next time you open them, she’s in front of you, but she’s no longer dressed like a frumpy housewife. If you had to take a guess, she probably hasn’t gotten this dolled up since before Tracey was born. You know she _definitely_ doesn’t break out the lingerie for company. 

What. The. Fuck.

You go to open your mouth but find it so dry with fear and anticipation and need, you close it again. 

“I’m sorry,” she says hesitantly, even shyly. “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up, wondering if this is stupid.” She takes a sip of red wine from a clear plastic tumbler which could very well belong to one of the kids, hell, and puts it on the cheap wood coffee table she’s sitting on. “I wanted to thank you for helping out around here with the kids and being here for me.” She half-laughs, half-cries peculiarly and bites her bottom lip. “I’d have probably borrowed one of Michael’s pistols and killed myself, honestly, if it were just me here still. I hate to sound so damn horrible like I hate these kids, and I hate everything, but try being lonely all of the time with two little kids. Especially one who wants Daddy.”

Oh, Tracey is definitely a girl after your own heart. 

You try to feel sorry for Amanda, and part of you does, but you know too well how it feels. “Try being lonely all of the time.” Your eyes never leave your shoes or the carpet. You want to yell at her, tell her she has everything you’ve ever wanted, but would she even understand? Or would she still take it all for granted?

She takes your hand in hers, and you marvel that they are equal in size, perfectly. “Trevor, I _am_ lonely all of the time.” You look up at her in confusion, and she takes another sip of wine with her free hand. “Michael’s hardly ever here, and when he is, we don’t really touch each other. We argue more than we do anything else.” She sighs and yawns deeply, and you can see how exhausted she looks, how much older she’s starting to look now despite quite a number of years younger than you and Michael. “I don’t think getting married was a good idea.”

“Little late for that, sister,” you snort miserably. 

“I suppose it is,” she frowns and then laughs. “I’m sorry, Trevor.”

“For what?”

But she never says. Instead, she climbs onto your lap and snuggles into your chest. “We’re both lonely, we’re both bored, and we’re both waiting on someone. How about you bring out whatever good stuff you’re hiding, and we’ll have a bit of fun, and it’ll be our secret?”

You almost throw her off in surprise. “Are you fucking nuts?? Behind Michael’s back??” What the fuck is her angle here?

She tries to look miffed, but it comes out like the expression Tracey gives when she’s got to shit really bad but can’t, so it’s more amusing than anything. “What the fuck do you think _he’s_ doing? He’s not being faithful!”

And suddenly you have an _oh shit_ moment and wonder if she knows about you and him, but then you realize she’s talking about something else entirely different, and now you’re wondering what the fuck she knows because you’re starting to feel the same rage. Has he kept shit from you? Is he fucking around on the both of you?

It wouldn’t be the first time. 

“I don’t have a way to prove it,” she says so softly, it startles you out of your inner rant. If it weren’t for the slight heaviness of her weight in your lap, you’d have forgotten she was there with you. “I have a woman’s intuition about these things though, you know?” You want to laugh at that until she utters, “A few times recently, he’s come home drunk smelling like cheap perfume to cover up the smell of sex. I know what the fuck it smells like.”

And then your blood boils because you sure as fuck know you smelled that too and assumed it was them but thought it didn’t smell like her signature brand of Elizabeth Taylor bullshit. So if it wasn’t her, and you know it wasn’t you….

Oh _fuck him_.

You’re not good at consoling angry, used women. You never were. You always failed with your mom, with girls at school, and anyone you tried to pick up over the years. That’s why you tend to stick to banging older women who already have their shit together or ones just as fucking crazy as you, in it just for the quick fun, and you never have to exchange names because once you attach a name, it becomes emotional. 

Kind of like it did with Michael and by proxy, his family. 

You try to wrap your arms around her and draw her nearer, hoping like hell that has some sort of calming effect despite you being both nervous and angry as fuck at Michael. Rocking her with you, you mumble reassuringly, “Don’t even fucking worry about him, OK? I’m going to have a nice little talk with him and straighten shit out. He doesn’t fuck around on us.”

She giggles, and it sounds like ice clinking in a glass to you. Not exactly annoying, just kind of high-pitched and resonating in your ears. “You said _us_.”

 _Busted_. You can feel your balls begin to sweat, shit. “I...I meant--”

She puts her left hand to your left cheek and rests it there, warming your skin, before she hiccups and giggles again. “It’s OK.”

You cock an eyebrow at her, playing at being exasperated but more than anything just grateful to have your mind occupied by something other than thoughts of Michael and thoughts of strangling some fucking new trash he’s gotten his dick wet in now. “Exactly how much did you have to drink tonight?”

She tries to hide her face in false shame. “A _lot_. A _lot_ lot.”

Well, that explains things. The thought crosses your mind that you should usher her to bed because that would be the best for _everybody_ , but you can’t help remembering that you’re horny, she’s horny, you’re both lonely as fuck courtesy of the same guy who’s playing with your hearts, and he’s currently somewhere else where he can’t answer for his sins. 

And one very fine dark pink nipple is peeking out over her nighty. You’re pretty sure your fate is sealed now.

“Mandy, Mandy, Mandy,” you chide teasingly. “You should probably know your limit.” You bring your finger up to test the waters, gauging her reaction as you brush her exposed nipple, and she moans so loudly, it feels like she’s coming apart in your hands from that one little innocuous thing. 

“Please, _Trevor_.” The way your name rolls off her tongue is positively delicious and wrong. “I _need_ this. I am going to die if I don’t get some sort of release.” And you know she will. Either this way or through gun by the look in her eyes, and you don’t want that for Michael or the kids. Your mother may be crazy thanks to your dad, but she’s all you have, and you’d sooner see yourself dead than to see _her_ dead, so you wouldn’t wish that on these kids, and Michael feels something for this woman for whatever fucking reason that you’re going to figure out one of these days...you just can’t do that to him. You can’t break him no matter how much you hate him right now. 

One look in her pitiful face, and you feel you need to extend her some sort of mercy. It’s like you’re looking in a mirror at yourself. Using that notion, you tell yourself that this is more like masturbation and less like cheating. You’re just helping yourself to feel better. 

And as you’re fucking, you think you see why he’s so hung up on her. She’s keeping up with every move you make and then some whereas Mike likes to slow the pace down and make everything more romantic and cinematic-like as if everything has to be a goddamn production. Somehow you both always meet in the middle, but you and Amanda are fucking with wild abandon. You’re two storms meeting in the night to form a vicious hurricane with how intense everything feels. 

Suddenly, it all makes beautiful sense. She’s you with tits and a vagina. Michael loves the sex.

But she’s not you personality-wise, and she never can be, which is why he keeps crawling back. 

The only conundrum that remains is why he feels the need to fuck around on the both of you. As you mull over that in your head, you pound into her more forcefully as you get madder by the moment, and thankfully, she can take it and only thinks you’re doing it to please her as she screams out joyfully in response.

* * *

Time goes on like that, you both help each other whenever you have a chance, and when she’s sober she seems somewhat repulsed by herself, but when she’s been at the bottle, it’s an entirely different ballgame. 

She laughs into her glass after you refill it for her. “Brad’s not so bad, you know.”

“If you like fucking idiots.”

“I’m fucking you, aren’t I?” she playfully teases and takes a hefty gulp from her cup, watching you the whole time. 

If looks could kill, you’d have dumped her damn body by now. Sometimes she’s so fucking annoying, you wish you could. “Hey, I’m not an idiot. There’s a difference. I’m smart, but I got moved around a lot as a kid, and teachers couldn’t be bothered to do their fucking jobs and help me keep up. So I’ve had to teach myself. I’m not perfect, so what? On the other hand, if you taught Tracey to fire a gun, she’d be smarter than Brad.”

She chokes on her latest big gulp and coughs some onto herself, dying of laughter all the way. “OK, so I meant to say he’s easy on the eyes.”

Heaven fucking help you, you roll yours. “I guess, if you like them stocky, loud, and obnoxious.”

She peers over her cup, catlike gaze following you, and it’s damn creepy. “Don’t _you_?” It’s like she’s daring you to say something.

You feel your cheeks turn warm. “S-s-shut up, Amanda. Fuck you.”

She smiles at you, and the genuine sweetness behind it is nearly frightening. “You know, you aren’t so bad either if you weren’t so busy trying to pretend you’re an asshole.” 

“O-o-ok,” you sputter anxiously, unnerved by the clarity the alcohol is giving her at this moment, “it’s bedtime for you. You’ve had way too much when you think I’m pretending.” You stand up and put an arm around her in order to haul her off to bed, but she shrugs you off.

“I’m not that drunk. It’s an observation. Let’s just say that the wine has helped loosen it up a bit.”

Now you’re really worried about where the fuck this is going. “What?”

She pats the chair next to her, more interested in getting you to reclaim your seat instead of answering, but really, you just want to get the fuck out of there. Why the fuck is this happening? You’re just here to be a glorified babysitter and sometimes fuck buddy, not to do the emotional head games trip again, and especially not with Amanda of all people. How does this keep happening to you, _dammit_?

She gives you a pointed look, and you heave a sigh, sliding back into the seat. Obviously, she’s not letting this go, not now. 

“Look, I know we aren’t the best of friends,” she starts off slowly after a moment’s pause, “or even friends half of the time. Probably because I know you and Michael have this weird-ass friendship I don’t understand completely, and this is the wine talking, but I’ll admit I’m jealous of it sometimes. You two read each other on a whole other level that him and I can’t reach.” She looks up into your eyes with fear. “It’s like you’re competition. I feel like you’re more competition than the skanky trash he’s usually out fucking. I’m afraid he’ll actually leave with you if you ask.” She flexes her hand into a shaking fist and bites at the whitened knuckles. “He loves you.”

“No, he doesn’t.” The denial slips out so easily like it’s been practiced. “He loves _you_ or else there wouldn’t be all of this,” you say, gesturing at their home. “You won.”

“I didn’t _win_ anything, you fucking idiot!” she groans out, nonplussed. “Oh _sure_ , I won some kids, a fucking trailer in the sticks, a crazy guy who is,” she stops herself and breathes out, closing her eyes, “OK, so you’re great in the sack, so I _get_ it, but then I have a husband who could wind up in the joint at any time, so I’m stuck constantly worrying over _all_ of you dumbasses, and this husband also seems to have one foot hanging out of the closet while also having one hand simultaneously up some girl’s skirt, so _please tell me what the fuck I’ve won here_ ,” she grounds out as she pokes you in the chest, emphasizing each word. 

What she says hits you. You get it, you really do, but you don’t know how to respond. Part of you is sad that she worries over all of you, and you blame yourself for that, for pushing everyone too hard, for always wanting the next big score, to always work harder so you can...what? Live faster? Harder? Die young? You’re not exactly sure. It had all made sense prior to Amanda in the picture when it was just you and Mike, and you had planned on dying young and leaving a somewhat disgusting but maybe sort of attractive to someone corpse, but it isn’t fair to her or the munchkins now, you realize. 

And yet another more immature part is still stuck on the fact that she said that you’re great in the sack, but you consider the wild look in her eyes, so you decide that a joke about that would probably land you a kick in the nuts, and you’re really not in the mood for it. You settle for neutral ground. “I have to hand it to you, you...you really did your research. You even pegged Mikey and not literally this time.”

Oh Jesus fuck, you didn’t mean for that to slide out.

Instead of getting irate, she bursts into hysterical laughter. “ _Oh my God_ , nothing in our marriage really is sacred with that asshole!” Her cup went empty at some point, so she chucks it to the carpet nonchalantly and starts chugging straight from the bottle. 

This...this is a whole new side. It’s kind of crazy, but also kind of crazy hot. Dammit, you really have to stop this shit with crazy women. You pretend to scratch an itch on your inner thigh, but it’s really that everything is just becoming unbearably tight downstairs. Fuck Amanda. 

Yeah, you’d really like to right now. 

Why do you keep doing this to Michael, you _stupid_ fuck?

After a healthy chug, she stops to catch her breath and looks at you. You can’t tell if it’s friendly or with contempt. “It started because he couldn’t get it up. He was having trouble. My old working friend, Candy...she’d told me once before that stroking the prostate is like stroking a G-spot, in a way. If a guy can’t get it up, he usually can then, surefire way if you don’t have pills. Unless he’s really fucked up.” She shrugs. “So I did how she’d described it, and once I did, he _was_ as hard as a fucking rock, and it was hot as hell having that power over him like that, but then it got weird.” She grows more pensive, taking sips here and there as she tries to figure out how to tell the rest. “He...he asked me to use my dildo, OK? And some lube we keep around, and I thought, ‘OK, this may be hot, so I’ll just go with it,’ and we did it with him doing most of the work, and he _squealed_ , Trevor,” she says in shock as if she still can’t believe what took place. “He fucking squealed and moaned so much, it was like fucking one of my friends. And he _begged_ , Jesus Christ, he begged,” she mumbles looking at the floor. “He...he wasn’t begging for me.”

And reality hits you.

“Oh fuck.” You don’t even know what to say. You’re stuck somewhere between wanting to fuck her into the ground still, overwhelming sadness and humiliation for her for having been on the receiving end of her husband calling out someone else’s name during sex, and wanting to fuck Michael into the ground and vice versa. You run a hand through your thinning scalp. This sure is becoming a real shitshow now, even more so. Why the fuck did you come back again? “I’m sorry, Amanda.”

She sighs around her bottle. “I thought you’d want to know. I didn’t win, Trevor. Yeah, he may be committed to me, but he’s not committed to _me_.”

Bullshit. “Or maybe he is.” She glances over at you, waiting patiently for you to say something. “I think it’s just like it’s always been. He likes what he likes, fucks what he fucks. He’s always been like that. Yeah, he likes to play the field just a bit too much for our liking, but he always comes back, doesn’t he?” Goddamn, are you trying to convince her or yourself? You know this shit is wrong, what he does, but here you go being the best bud, defending his dumb ass again. Some days you feel you’ll go to the grave defending this dipshit. 

She looks a bit confused at first but slowly nods. “I guess? But I’m getting tired of it, Trevor. I’m getting tired of sharing him with the whole world. I’m getting tired of worrying about him. I...I guess I could be OK with whatever the hell it is you two have as long as it doesn’t interfere with my marriage,” she sulks as she drinks up the remainder of the bottle and then lets it roll from her long fingers to the carpet. 

You remember a time when you had been excited to think that your twosome was becoming a threesome and that Amanda was just someone new to love because there’s this part of you that just wants to love everyone because you never got enough growing up, and you just crave it like a flower craves sunlight and water and soil. And then came the rejections and feeling like a freak, but time passes on, and people change, or so you tell yourself, and you mentally nudge yourself towards her in hopes that she’s changed, if even a little. “Amanda, I’d never do that. You know you all are the closest shit to family I have. I know I’m not the greatest person, and sometimes I’m a fucking lunatic, but I just want to be Uncle T and be around in whatever capacity.” Anxiously, you stare at the floor, wishing you could be less of a gigantic pussy at this emotional bullshit. “I...I liked what we used to do, all of us, but we don’t have to do that if you’re afraid it would scar the kids for life. I mean, I get it. We can just have fun whenever.”

Why the _fuck_ are you always being someone’s fucking side piece?? Is that all you’re good for, you worthless piece of shit?

She looks up at the ceiling thoughtfully as if she’s at least considering the idea. “Maybe. It would be fun every once in a while to shake things up.” Suddenly smirking, she leans forward whispers conspiratorially, “I’d at least like you and me to continue when Michael gets home. We need a codeword.” 

Bile rises up in your throat, but you swallow that shit right back down because, dammit, you are a _man_ , not a woman, and you will _not_ let her see your vulnerabilities. 

But deep down internally, you’re screaming because this is not what the fuck you want for Michael. And it sure the hell isn’t what you want for yourself. Why do you hate yourself this much? Why can’t you just tell her no? It’s really easy to just say no, like Nancy Reagan used to pitch all the time. 

Except it’s not. When you look into her eyes, you see yourself staring back at you; hollow, desperate, needy. 

Waiting for it all to end. 

So you suck it up like the fucking man you are, put on a fake grin, and ask her if she knows anything about tennis. 

* * *

Later that night when you try to sleep, you wonder why so much of your internal voice sounds like a mixture of your father and Ryan. And you can’t sleep so you hear when Michael comes in the door with his gear and a duffel bag, huffing and puffing, the smell of cheap beer and perfume coming off him in waves.

“Couldn’t have waited, could you?” You eye him accusingly before rolling onto your side and presenting him with your back.

The old couch bed sags a bit as he sits next to you. “Sorry. Brad wanted to go to hit up a fucking nudie bar for a celebratory drink before we ever hit North Yankton. It’s harder to say no when you aren’t there.” An arm slides down your backside, making you shiver slightly. “And I _did_ wait, for your information.”

You shake every single dirty thought from your head and try to think of Amanda. “Well, go put it to your wife first because she’s been miserable this whole fucking time. I can wait a bit longer.”

It’s quiet in the dark for a few minutes until you hear, “Oh, OK,” and the springs on the couch bed creak from the released weight. You miss his warmth next to you, but dammit, you said you could share, and that’s what the fuck you are going to do. You’re not going to ruin the marriage. You can do this, you can survive like this, as long as he’s near, you can have some sort of semblance of sanity. You can survive on what Amanda told you.

Then her loud moans pierce the night air, and you think that could’ve been you getting all of that pent-up _after score_ delicious sexual energy, so no, no, you can’t survive this. Not at all. Fuck all of this.

* * *

You wake up with a start to someone pawing at your asscheeks. “What the _fuck_??”

“Shhh,” comes a voice in the dark that belongs suspiciously to Michael. “Mandy’s sleeping.”

You sit up with a jolt, thinking he’s out of his damn mind if he thinks he’s getting fucked or doing any fucking on this couch right out in the living room. You like danger, but not that kind of danger. “I can’t believe _I’m_ saying this, but are you goddamn crazy right now? There are kids in this house. One of them walks. She could wander in here. You also have a crazy wife who could kill us both.”

You can make out the hint of him taking off boxers in the dim light. “And she’s out like a fucking light. I don’t know how much she drank earlier, but after I knocked her out cold, she’s not getting up until noon, at least, so I’ll be stuck with Jimmy duty--”

“I’ve been getting Jimmy some nights,” you quip irritably, “so _I’ll_ be doing that.”

“Oh.” He’s silent again for a few minutes until he offers, “Well Tracey won’t be awake till dawn at least.”

“For fuck’s sake!” you resign, throwing your arms in the air. “There’s no stopping you, I guess!”

“You...you don’t _want_ to?” he sounds confused and slightly dejected. He moves to put his boxers back on, and you recall what Amanda said. “I just thought, ya know, what you said earlier…,” he finishes lamely.

You put a hand on his shoulder gently to stop him. “Wait. Look, I want to, OK, it’s just weird here with everyone about.” You also want to say that not everything has to be about sex all of the damn time, but then your mind blasts you for sounding like a fucking girl because _of course_ everything is about sex. 

He sits back down and throws his arm around you. “I miss you out there.”

“I miss being out there,” you admit. It’s another drug, another rush, and it’s your constant connection to the most precious thing in the world to you.

“Is it time?” that precious thing asks.

Fuck yeah, is it time. You’re ready to be back out doing what you know so well, feeling like you’re something close to normal again. Taking his right hand in yours, kissing the scarred fingers you know so well, you agree. “Let’s give Lester a call.”


	8. The Secrets That We Keep To Ourselves (Late Fall 1994)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Secrets That We Keep To Ourselves comes from a line in the song Exits by Foals which sounds very much like a GTA-style song. 
> 
> Luc Robitaille and Dave Taylor played for the LA Kings waaaaay back when.
> 
> Yes, Claude is a nod to GTA 3. :)

Bullets are firing off everywhere around you, and the sound of metal hitting metal has your blood on fire in a way you haven’t felt alive in a while. It doesn’t matter how old you get or where you go or how you think you could’ve been in another life, you know _this_ is the only thing you’re truly meant to be. This is the only place where you can truly perform your unique brand of where art and chaos meet. 

This plan has gone just about as slicey and dicey as you figured it would because it was mostly hashed out by Lester and Brad with some input by Michael and maybe just a bit from you such as in “this smells like a shit bomb waiting to go off that Brad baked in an Easy Oven” that took much threatening from Michael to get Brad off you -- as _if_ you needed help, but the gesture was nice -- but you see now that your instincts were right. 

Brad can’t do planning after this. Jesus Christ, what the fuck was Lester _thinking_? The stocky blond boob may be all right to party with and can fire a gun, but he’s a fucking moron at the end of it all.

But you’ve been in bigger jams than this with just you and Mikey alone, and with all of the practiced slickness of a pair of horny tomcats, you eye each other from across the room, and with a quick nod shared between the both of you, you pop up and start firing the AR-15 in your hands, wildly aiming everywhere there’s a dark grey security uniform while Michael is more style, grace, and deadly accuracy with his Glocks poised and ready as he comes out from behind the column he was hiding. 

A few guards go down to your left, and Brad whoops like the fucking idiot he is as if he’s the one who took the shot. “Got ‘em on the run now, fellas!”

“How’s ‘bout ya cram a dick in that slit ya call a mouth and do some actual fucking work eh, _B_?” you shout snidely and hear Michael snigger to your right as Brad flips you the bird. Man, you’ve missed this shit. It’s been far too long. 

“Eyes on the prize, gentlemen,” Michael reminds you all and barely bats an eyelash or breaks a fucking sweat as he takes down two more guards. Jesus Christ, he’s still _so_ fucking beautiful to watch, even after all this time, and it nearly steals your breath away. It _definitely_ steals your goddamn attention away. 

“Yo T!” Brad’s obnoxious gravelly voice tears through your skull like a migraine. “Think you can stop staring at M’s ass long enough to help us out?” he half-laughs, half-yells at you, and you realize he’s got you bang to rights, fucking little rat bastard that he is, but you blush and decide that maybe, just _maybe_ , a fucking bullet will stray a little too close to his fat ass. No one will be the wiser. 

Michael turns around, trying to figure out what the commotion is and why it’s about him but ends up flipping Brad the bird in return as well as he can with his hands full, trying not to get his finger shot off. He looks back at you, and for a minute you think he’s going to do the same or bitch at you, but he merely winks and motions you ahead. 

You wonder briefly if he can tell you are blushing under your ski mask before shaking the thought off and following after him. 

Things are eerily quiet after Moses has popped off the last guard, but there are four other floors to this fucking place, not including the goddamn basement, and you wonder as you bite your fucking nails if Lester in all of his bumbling know-it-all grandstanding and Brad in all of his ego-stroking shitmongering managed to account for that fucking fact. You know someone was on their walkie talkie before they met their maker at the swift end of a bullet and whisper as much to Michael who nods along with you, confirming he saw the same thing. 

Fuck, this isn’t going to be easy. You can feel it deep within your bones, settling in like rheumatism. Something’s wild in the air, like some sort of static electricity you can taste, a sixth sense you can feel….

Something is going to happen. 

Moses can smell it too, you know. His eyes are darting all over the place, like he’s watching and waiting on the fucking Devil, himself, to come rolling in. It takes a lot to disturb the fuck out of you, but you shiver despite yourself. 

Because you’ve never been afraid for your own damn self. Never. But you’re afraid for others. 

As you reach Michael and Brad who are working to key in the code Lester gave them for the vault, you marvel at the idea that this shit is getting more and more impossible the older you get thanks to technology. You make a mental note while they’re struggling to figure out Lester’s handwriting to explain to your bespeckled partner that he’s either going to have to work on his penmanship, you’re all going to have to start hitting up the older lock and key systems, or you’re going to start taking fucking hostages whether anyone likes it or not. 

You realize no one likes your “leave no witnesses behind” strategy, but well, it’s worked excellently for you so far.

A loud click fills the still air of the room, and Brad finally lets out another holler. “Jesus, finally! Four Eyes had me sweating bullets!”

You snort, agreeing with the simpering asshole. The grip around your AR-15 tightens because something about this still doesn’t feel right, you never doubt your gut instinct, and dammit, you’re not about to start now. “M,” you mumble uneasily as Michael and Moses are working to fill the bags they’ve brought with as much green and coinage as quickly as humanly possible. 

“Yeah, I know, T,” he agrees sullenly. “Something’s just...just--”

“Off,” Moses finishes.

The two stop loading and share a knowing look with you. A sneeze viciously lurches itself out of your nose. This whole thing stinks of bad luck. 

Dumbass Brad hasn’t even bothered to look up from what he’s doing. Hell, he’s like a kid at the candy store, lining his pockets, loading his duffle bag, and grabbing everything he can get his greedy piggish hands into, and he hasn’t noticed the shift in the stagnant air yet unlike everyone else. Everyone else is about as antsy as you, ready to leave, and the tension is so palpable, you can imagine yourself slicing it with the old Bowie knife you keep tucked in its sheath on the inside of your jeans. 

After a few minutes of silence, he starts to catch on and looks around at everyone with a perplexed eyebrow raised. “What the fuck are we waiting on, guys?”

Moses gestures at the room, his deep baritone barely above a whisper, “You can’t _feel_ that?”

Brad glances back and forth between Moses and Michael before bursting out laughing. “Christ, you guys _really_ believe in that mumbo jumbo shit?”

If looks could kill, Brad Snider would be amongst the no longer living crowd twisting haphazardly in Moses’ big, dark meaty arms, but Michael just rolls his eyes and grabs his duffle bag, double-checking to make sure everything is in order. “It just means we need to close up shop _now_. I don’t think that’s the only set of security we’re going to run into.”

“But L and me--”

“‘ _But L and me_!’” you mock. You’ll be _damned_ if he disrespects Michael Townley. Only two people on this planet get to do that, and you’re one of them. “Lester and Michael are the Luc Robitaille and Dave Taylor of planning while you’re the shit that gets scraped up off the ice by the Zamboni.” You point the tip of the AR-15 towards him without even thinking about it...although if you do dwell on it, you _might_ still be slightly hostile about earlier when he pointed out your ass-watching activities that were _none of his fucking business_ since everything was well under hand. “You are absolute dog shit at planning, and this? Oh, this fucking _proves_ it.”

Michael steps towards you and pushes the semi-automatic away from Brad’s heated face even though he’s grinning like a fool, probably at your hockey reference. “T, c’mon, man. Calm down. It’ll be OK.” He smiles reassuringly at you, and you want to believe that beautiful face, but everything feels upside down right now. Looking seriously at Moses and Brad, he nods to them and clears his throat before stating firmly, “No stragglers. We’re done here. Keep your eyes open because they’re going to be waiting for us at the exits, no matter what way we take out now. Be prepared to shoot your way out to the vehicle.”

Moses nods in return, but Brad gives Michael a look that you wish you could knock right the fuck back off his stupid looking face. “How do you figure there are more?? Jesus Christ, M, we took out fucking nearly two dozen back there or had to--”

“Because we both spotted a guy on a handheld, fuckface,” you spit at him, having had entirely enough of both his shit and his face today, you think, and simply cannot _wait_ to fire at someone to release some of this pent up anger, dammit. “What the hell do you think he was doing on it? I doubt he was giving the ‘all’s well,’ for fuck’s sakes, so I’d wager we’re about to see this city’s finest boys in blue, wouldn’t you?”

The color in Brad’s face slowly drains. “Oh shit, I didn’t think--”

“That’s right,” you snap, “you _didn’t_.” Goddamn, this fucking hair-brained fool could get every last one of you thrown in prison or killed all because he _swore_ he could be better than Michael, but there’s _no one_ better than Michael, and why the fuck Lester hasn’t recognized that by now and let this clown have a try, is beyond you, but _he’s_ not getting out of a talk with you either. If anything _ever_ happened to Michael--

“T, that’s enough,” Michael’s voice cuts into your conscious stream of ranting as he places a soothing hand on your right shoulder, gripping you tightly. It’s just an action between the both of you, something he does for you to calm you down sometimes that the others never bother to see or don’t pay attention to, you’re not sure. You’re grateful for this one little gesture, deep down, even though at the surface it makes you sputter and burn like some baby who needs coddling and his nappy changed. 

You brush his hand off and cough. “Yeah, yeah. We’ll be fine. We’re always fine.”

Famous last words. 

* * *

You wish you could go back in time and kick your miserable jinxing ass. How the fuck you’ve landed at Lester's with _some doctor who knows Lester_ which sounds suspect as all fuck and holding Michael’s hand while he’s lying in a pool of his and your blood intertwining like some fascinating art piece, you really don’t know, other than you’re glad that Brad’s stupid fucking face is nowhere in the room for his own goddamn sake. Lester had made sure of that, thankfully. 

You’d all walked out into both cops and more security like a fucking setup, and you’d barely made it out on the skin of your teeth, but you’d been so fucking pissed off that you’d made damned sure that Brad had collected every last fucking bag from everyone before you’d sent him hightailing it for Claude who was waiting in the getaway car, and then you'd concentrated on getting Moses and Michael to the fucking car. Your health be damned. 

The bullets had come from everywhere, like a fucking swarm of angry hornets. 

Moses had taken one to the shoulder and one had nicked the back of his left calf, but he was no worse for wear, really. But Michael...Michael….

Your life had flashed before your eyes as you saw him slip from your hands and to the pavement into a pool of blood.

It keeps playing over and over in your mind now like one of those horrible old noir movies Michael has forced you to watch, and you bite your tongue to keep from laughing at the thought. Jesus Christ, you could’ve _lost_ him today. You could _still_ lose him. What _right_ do you have to laugh at him when all he tries to do is share something he loves with you?? That’s _all_ he ever tries to do is share himself with you, and _you_ _just keep fucking pushing him away, you sorry sack of shit_. 

Before you can berate yourself anymore, fingers snap in front of your face, and you jerk back slightly. When you look up, it’s Lester. “Sorry, but I kept trying to get your attention. You seemed a little lost in thought.”

“Yeah,” you ground out bitterly, “I wonder why.”

Lester heaves a long sigh and mumbles something incoherently to himself, but it’s not like you care what he’s got to say right now. You’re still pissed about this botched-ass job. “Michael’s going to be OK, Trevor. Patterson told me the news.”

“Oh.” Oh Jesus, you can breathe a little better knowing he’s not going to die because that’s all that’s been spinning in your head ever since he hit the pavement, and you’d had to try to throw his bigger ass onto your back and pray to a God you don’t really believe in that he didn’t get hit with more bullets while you ran for cover.

Patterson hadn’t even had anesthesia to work with, so you’d had to sit there, listening to the one most precious to you in the whole fucking world try not to bawl like a baby while getting shards of metal plucked from his chest while you stroked his arm gently, calmly, like he’s done for you countless times in the past when you’ve been strung out or amped up or suicidal as fuck. You had to watch his chest get stitched back up and lip -- which got grazed by another fucking bullet -- while he hissed in pain and finally, blissfully, passed out because his body had run out of the adrenaline it had been running on. 

“He’ll be fine,” Lester begins again.

“Will he really?” you laugh in spite of yourself. No, it’s not fine. Michael’s _scarred_. Michael’s been _hurt_. This has never happened before. This shit you do has all been fun and games like cops and robbers in the past. You’ve always been good at what you do until you’ve allowed someone else to come in and fucked about and muck shit up. Amanda has never had to take a close look at what could be the possible grim reality of what you all do, and neither has Michael. Neither have you. 

Lester doesn’t get it though and says again, “Yes, it just looked worse than it was. Speaking of which, you’re bleeding all over my floor, or hadn’t you noticed?”

You shrug. You don’t even recall getting grazed by anything, but sure enough, you must’ve because you’re missing flesh in more than a few places, but you don’t even register the pain because you’re so numb and so fucking scared right now. 

Lester nudges you and tries again. You’re not sure if he’s trying in his half-assed way to be a friend again or if he’s more concerned about his goddamn floor. “Go get checked out.”

But your feet won’t budge. You look at him miserably with only one nagging thought on your mind -- _Amanda will make him stop_. “Why, Les? Why the fuck did Brad have anything to do with this? This is like asking a kid to teach college-level physics. He shouldn’t have been anywhere near this shit. He could’ve gotten us all killed.”

Lester shuffles from one leg to the next before deciding to take a seat beside you. He gives a long drawn out sigh as if trying to figure out what to say as he stares at all the blood on the floor, and after a while, you’re both staring at it but probably for entirely different reasons. What’s he thinking? How much he’s going to have to pay a cleaner to stay quiet about the mess? Or is he like you? Is he thinking about how much of that blood is Michael’s lifeline that leaked onto his dirty-ass floor? Is he feeling remorse now? Does he realize how much he fucked up? Does he know how _badly_ you want to tear someone limb from limb?

Oh wait -- he probably does on that end which is why Brad is nowhere to be found. Fuck. 

“It was supposed to be Michael doing the planning, not Brad.”

You look at him from your peripheral vision. “Go on.”

He scratches at his neck, an old telling nervous tic. “Uh, I’m not sure I should be talking about this since Michael’s asleep.”

A chuckle bubbles up from your throat, somewhat darkly because you’re aware that secrets are being kept behind your back, but also goodnaturedly because this is Lester the Molester. Jesus, it can’t be _that_ bad, can it? You throw a friendly arm around his back despite his objections, not even caring that you’re getting blood on him and his clothes. “Lester, my man, don’t ever play poker because your tell is terrible. What the fuck are you guys keeping from me?” 

“I told him not to do it alone. I _told_ him you would find out,” Lester grumbles.

“I’d find out what?”

“His side project.” He takes off his glasses and pretends to clean them. Another nervous tic. 

You look at him in confusion. “What about his side project? I thought that was odd job shit he took from you to get extra pay?”

Lester finishes cleaning his lenses and then pushes his glasses back up onto his nose. He takes a long look down at you. “Not exactly.” He sighs and leans forward on his hands. “He was doing stuff for me in the beginning, _yes_ , but he was also doing stuff to placate an urge of his, and it took too long. I don’t know why I didn’t put a stop to it, but you know how bull-headed he can be.”

“Wait, what?”

He laughs, which is a disturbing, almost vicious, sound coming from him. “St. Mary’s, Trevor. _No one_ screws over Lester Crest.”

You blink at him in wonder. Good goddamn, and everyone thought _you_ needed to be in there. Does anyone look in a fucking mirror? “This is about the stupid fucking hospital where you all shoved me and forgot about me like the wedding topper to a cake in someone’s freezer??” You start giggling, but it turns into deep howls as you realize something. “Amanda and I thought he was out fucking around this whole time, Jesus.”

Lester looks away suddenly. “I don’t know what he got up to while he was doing other...stuff.”

The laughter dies in your throat, strangling you with it. There’s something sick in the way he said that like he knows something. “What...what is it, L. You know something, you’d _better_ not keep it from me.”

He taps at his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t think it’s as bad as you’re thinking. He...he was angry, and he let his anger consume him. I suppose I did too. Maybe we should have let St. Mary’s go. Hospitals going belly up is a sign of the times.” He looks you in the eyes with something as close to fondness as you think it gets for someone like Lester. “We were all pretty pissed off.”

“Thanks for the love, Lester, but what did he do, exactly?”

“He tracked down everyone on the board and got rid of them, from the COO and vice president on down. On his _own_.”

"Got _rid of_ them?" You don't need him to say it for you. You just know. 

He stared ahead at the wall. “It’s...I’ve...I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like that or so mad. He was acting on pure emotion. He was acting like--”

“Me,” you finish sadly.

Lester smacks at your shoulder with about the strength of a fish flopping at you. “I didn’t mean it like that, and you know it.” 

“I’ve done it, Lester. I’ve managed to do it all, fuck him up so badly. I’ve gotten him hurt which I swore would never fucking _ever_ happen, and I’ve somehow fucking broken him and made him as fucked up as me.” You stare at the blood on the floor, and a single tear dares to fall from your eye and mingle in it. “How? How the hell did it get to this?”

“We don’t exactly run a business baking cookies for the Boy Scouts, Trevor. You and Michael both have some twisted ideas about the reality of our line of work.”

“I’ll give you Mikey, OK, because he’s stuck on this romantic idea of _do no fucking harm_ or at least he usually is when he’s not busy being a huge-ass hypocrite, apparently, and he loves those old detective flicks and idolizes them maybe way too much, but _moi_?” 

“Yes, you. You seem to have this idea that everything that goes wrong in life is your fault. As you say, shit happens. Yeah, this won’t _ever_ happen again, and you have my word on that, but you can’t go blaming what happened here on yourself.” He stares at you so deeply, you feel yourself squirming in your seat. “I won’t let you.”

You drop your eyes back to the floor, glaring hard at it until all you can see in your vision is red and cloudiness from tears straining to break loose. You sit in silence for a while until you hear a small rumbling that comes from Lester’s direction, indicating he’s fallen asleep in the chair. 

But you can’t sleep. Every time you close your eyes, you hear the sound of metal on metal, hear Michael’s cries, smell the tang of the blood, feel his fingers slip from yours, see him hit the pavement with a thud, looking up at you like why why _why_ Trevor, why did you do this to me, _why did you let this HAPPEN_? 

And you also see Amanda with her heavy-handed glare, looking over you, daring you to say something in retaliation, slowly becoming your mother and kicking you while you’re already hurting and crying out. _You know what you did_. 

The hand that has never left yours as you’ve been sitting next to him starts to come to life and grips you harder. You barely hear his voice, have to strain to do so, and get close to his face so you can. “T, where?”

You rest your head in the crook of his neck and mumble into his ear. “Lester’s. He has some fucking doctor on call, don’t ask me why.” You try to suck it up just for him because the last thing he needs is to see you falling apart while his blood is everywhere, but you’re failing hard. “I...I got you shot. Jesus Christ, I wasn’t paying attention, and I--”

He grips your hand tighter and coughs painfully. “Not you...Brad.”

The reminder of that name has your blood boiling again. “Who I’m going to fucking kill the next time I see him,” you seethe, fists shaking. 

“Let...it...go,” Michael tries to get out, but you can tell he’s in pain because each word is a struggle, and you shoot up, looking for any sign of pain meds left behind. You find morphine tablets with a prescription for Percocet on one of Lester’s many cluttered desks and bring him the pills along with your beer. 

“Morphine for the pain,” you explain to him, and he nods as he chugs down the offered relief. You look everywhere but him. You feel like such a fucking failure, and your dreams did nothing to help matters. 

“T--”

“You shouldn’t talk,” you say even though oddly enough, you shouldn’t be either because your voice is starting to tremble. “You have s-s-stitches on your upper lip from the b-bullll--” You slap your knee and twist it, growling in pain as one of the wounds you have is on the kneecap. You are NOT going to fucking cry, dammit. “I ruined your fucking face, Mikey, _oh holy fuck, I ruined your fucking beautiful face_!”

And now the tears start coming. You can’t stop them. 

He reaches for your wrist and tries to grip it, but you pull away as if his skin is scalding, afraid to touch him. “It’ll be...OK.”

“Are you fucking nuts??” you scream at him. “That’s what you said before this goddamn disaster! And and _and_ we _knew_ it smelled like shit, but we stepped all over it any fucking way! You could’ve died, you fucking idiot! I could’ve _lost_ you!” 

He tries his best to smile up at you, as he says, “I’m alive,” but you can tell it hurts, and it nearly breaks your fucking heart in two. You _still_ want to break Brad’s face in two….

But it’s not really Brad’s fault, is it? 

“Michael,” you start out slowly, and he looks at you, noting the change in atmosphere and your serious demeanor, “why the fuck do I have to find out from Lester why you weren’t around to plan for this? Why does it have to come from him?”

He looks away. He’s tired, you can tell. The medicine is trying to kick in, helped along with the beer. He’s also wary and stubborn, that never changes, but you’re more fucking hard-headed than him, and he knows it. 

“Mikey, why. This could’ve been avoided. And you didn’t have to do the dirty work on your own.”

His body tenses slightly. Is he mad? _Really_? Is he _mad_ at what you have to say? He wouldn’t have his ass plastered to this makeshift operating table if he’d consulted with you about matters regarding you in the first fucking place. 

“You...don’t understand,” he whispers.

“Try me.”

He stares up at the ceiling in thought, and you can tell that the meds are really starting to take effect...shit. He’s not exactly a seasoned addict, maybe blow here and there besides booze and a little pot, but you’re not sure what the fuck morphine is going to do to him. Can you trust anything he says on it?

“I needed...I had to. It hurt...to hear you. The phone that day. To think...I’d ever leave.” He stops and tries to lick his lips but remembers the stitches and frowns. “I couldn’t sleep. Not while...you thought--”

What he’s trying to say dawns on you, and you want to throw up. It’s your fault. Lester is _wrong_. It’s _always_ your fault. Your family was right. 

“No, no, _no_. You can’t really mean that shit,” you mumble while biting your nails frantically. 

He tries to reach up for your face, but he’s drowsy and sluggish. You grab his hand and help him even though you don’t feel like you deserve to be in his presence. “Kiss me,” he begs. “I’m in...lots of pain.”

Just looking at him on this table, even stitched up, as horrible as it is, he’s still so beautiful in your eyes. He takes your breath away just like he always has, and you don’t think there will ever be a time when he doesn’t. “Mikey.”

“Please.”

It doesn’t take much pleading for your lips to find his. You try your best to be gentle, to not undo the work that Patterson went through to painstakingly sew each fine stitch. It scratches and feels strange against you, but underneath the roughness is still your soft Mikey, just the same, and you want to melt into the kiss but think better of it.

“I love you.”

You do a double-take, thinking you heard wrong. “What??”

“I love Amanda...I love you too. She...doesn’t like it. She wants...me to herself. But I love you both. I’m so...confused, Trev,” he yawns. 

You’re still stuck in shock that he said he loves you because that’s a rarity. You think you can count the number of times on one hand that’s happened in the years you’ve known each other, but he’s actually being so open...the influence of the damn morphine? Now you’re irritated at that witch for being so against not only all of you sharing when she’d said she’d _think about it_ but also for obviously saying shit behind your back. 

You really want to say something to Michael about her, but you’ll just wait to hash that out with her the next time you two have a _tennis date_. Because you know she won’t wait that long. 

Stroking his head gently with your free hand, you grin. “For what it’s worth, I love you most of the time when you aren’t a pain in the ass.”

But he just grips you harder as he closes his eyes. “No, Trevor. I really love you. I love you...but I’m...stuck...in hell.”

“You and me both, compadre,” you sigh as you shut your eyes and pray for rest.

As you start to nod off, you realize it’s been a long time since anything harder than liquor has touched your mouth, and you don’t know if you should mention it like you’re proud of it or some shit because would anyone even care besides you? You’re not even sure if you should care.

* * *

You knew there would be hell to pay when you both got home. _It’ll be fine_. He’s eating those words now. 

“How the fuck did you let this happen, Trevor??” 

You feel like you’re a kid again, and you’re facing your mother for any number of things. Drawing on the walls. Toys where they shouldn’t be. Her lipstick in your room. You in her high heels. She glances hotly back and forth between you and Michael with her hands on her hips, looking like she’s ready to spit fire at any minute. 

Michael’s still struggling to talk due to the stitches which sucks for him because you can tell he’s trying hard not to yell at his wife. “Why do you...assume it’s Trevor’s...fault? He didn’t...do shit.”

“It’s obvious he didn’t do shit,” she mocks back acerbically. “You wouldn’t have holes or stitches in you otherwise. How am I supposed to explain this shit to family and friends??”

Oh _ho ho ho ho_ , there it is. “That’s all you care about, isn’t it? You don’t give a fuck about Michael or how he’s feeling. Fuck, you don’t give a shit that I got shot too -- thanks for asking, by the way. Amanda only cares that her wonderful fantasy to look as normal as possible has gone down the shitter in her mind!”

You notice out of the corner of your eye a pair of blond pigtails peeping from around the corner of her bedroom, and suddenly you’re reminded of every fight your parents had, making you feel bad. 

Amanda’s eyes cross, and she looks like she’s stuck somewhere between wanting to bounce your skull off the gravel outside or desperately hate-fuck you. “Fuck you, Trevor! You can get the fuck out, right now!” she screams, pointing at the front door.

Michael moves between you, raising his hands in defense. Of her? Of you? You’re not sure who needs defending more. “Whoa, Mandy...you don’t...there’s no need. It’s getting cold.”

She crosses her arms and looks away. “I don’t fucking care right now.”

He looks at you helplessly. You’re used to this look. It’s the look that says Amanda has won again, and it’s time for Trevor to fuck off.

“Right,” you sigh and grab your bag filled with the few things you’ve managed to own in this lifetime. The fact that you’ve never unpacked them says a lot to you right now. “I’m sure the park benches remember my ass well,” you mutter as you open the door to the cool night air.

You hear two Townley voices simultaneously tugging at your heartstrings.

One belongs to blond pigtails who run towards you, crying, “Unc’a T, no go!” but she’s scooped up by her mother. You watch in a fascinated and depressed way as she beats her little fists at Amanda’s arms and kicks her little feet against her, desperately yelling at you to come back. 

The other belongs to her father, who’s just as desperate as he grabs at your wrist and shouts as well as he can, “No! It’s too cold. Promise me...promise you’ll get a room.”

You want to argue about the semantics of wasting money on just you, but one hard stare from him shuts you up, so you just nod dejectedly as you wave and leave the place you’ve called home for almost a year. 

Tracey’s voice still rings in your ears as the lovely couple begins to fight. 

You’re going to need to find your crank guy because fuck this shit. So much for being proud over your milestone. You never even got to share it with at least Mikey, but maybe it was never meant to be. 

There are a lot of things in your life that are not meant to be.


	9. Nights of Loveless Love (Winter 1994)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nights of Loveless Love is taken from the song Love by Daughter which helped to inspire a lot of this chapter. Seriously, go give them a listen! Love her haunting voice!
> 
> This is a longer-than-normal chapter, partially because of material but also I've been working alongside writing stuff for the Fanzine and doing other things, so usually they're like eleven pages long on Google Docs, and this one was like maybe closer to twenty or so? Lol, enjoy. 
> 
> There's a bit of French because who doesn't love sexy French-speaking Trevor?
> 
> Comprenez-vous: Understood  
> J’adore: I adore  
> Putain de merde: (can mean many things but is basically a way of saying) Fucking hell  
> Nous sommes comme des pièces d'un puzzle: We're pieces of the same puzzle  
> Nous sommes faits pour être ensemble: We belong together

Worn boots crunch through the freshly fallen snow that already worked to cover the tracks you’d previously put down on your way to both the liquor store and your dealer. Snow comes up through various holes in the bottoms of them, but even though it soaks your unsocked feet, you can’t even find it in yourself to care, and you’re long-since numb to the cold. 

You aren’t even sure why you’re still living out of a motel at this point. There’s an absolution in you that feels like it’s time to be an adult and get a fucking trailer or apartment because you’re always going to be on your own, and paying for these rooms gets expensive, but Jesus, you think to yourself that voice sounds too much like _his_ influence, and you need to drown it out, so you walk faster as the street lamps begin to pop off with the approaching dawn. 

It’s not as if sleep escapes you. All you _do_ is sleep these days. It’s close to the holidays, and who do you have to share it with anyway? You’re pretty sure you’ve heard someone banging at your door a few times, but you’ve either been too tired, too depressed, too damn high to care, or a combination of all of the above to answer. It’s not like anyone is inviting you to any fancy shindigs, so you’re getting shitfaced for Christmas all the way through New Years'. Fuck them all, fuck them all, _fuck them all_. 

The closer you come to the beloved rank place you currently call home -- even if you find yourself smirking hollowly at the notion of _home_ in your head -- the antsier you become. Shadows surround you, and more often than not, you find yourself checking over your shoulder, wondering if someone’s trailing behind you, but no one’s ever there because everyone’s indoors with their families during Christmas vacation, and even the single souls have found someone to pay to share their time with or they’re at least contented introverts while you’re out here by yourself, braving the cold as if it’s your goddamn duty to get that fucking fifth of Canadian Mist and those three grams of crank like someone’s life depends on it. 

Well, maybe _someone’s_ life does. Yours. 

When you finally reach good ol’ lucky number three with the three hanging halfway down to where it looks like a mustache instead of what it’s supposed to actually be, you begin the process of beating the snow from your boots and trying to shake it off your coat and out of your hair. Again, you get the nagging feeling that you’re being watched, but a quick check around shows nothing, so you shake your head at yourself and walk on in, slamming the door behind you. You stop to put your paper sack full of booze on the banged-up old dresser, drop your baggie next to it along with your glass pipe and lighter and shrug off your coat while kicking off your boots to the farthest corner of the room away from you. 

You turn on the TV and find it still tuned to The Box which is currently showing Alice In Chains’ Down In a Hole, and usually, even though you’re of a more upbeat punk kind of guy normally, this is what’s in these days, and you don’t really mind it. You really find yourself understanding the melancholy feeling behind it, especially when you can get that the song in question seems to be talking about fucking up love, drugs, and love of drugs. All things you’re well-versed in these days. 

As Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell harmonize over losing souls, wanting to fly, but being denied, you unscrew the cap off the whiskey, tilt the bottle towards them, and sardonically cackle, “I feel your pain, gentlemen.”

When you land on the bed with a giant plop, you guzzle down more of the amber liquid, not really caring about the burn, only relishing the fact that it delivers you from feeling anything at all, and that’s what you seek. You don’t want to think about him with her right now. You don’t want to think about what they’re doing. You don’t want to think about how much you love him or how much you’ve _always_ loved him, and why can’t he _fucking_ acknowledge that? You don’t want to think about those two kids, poor little pigtails wailing her ass off over someone as pathetic as you. 

You don’t want to question as to why he'd even cared whether you froze to death or not. 

You don’t have a plan. Real men don’t carry plans for when they are planning to leave. They just leave without a word one day, and that’s what you are going to do. You are slowly spending everything away, partying it up, you’re making it look like an accident. 

No one will ever know besides you and maybe your dealer if he has half a clue, but who is he going to rat to? And you pay well, yes, but customers are plenty, these days. What’s one lousy soul to more coming in every day?

Michael will never know, and he can get on with his goddamn life without you in it.

You can stop wondering what you ever did to make Amanda hate you that fucking much.

Taking another huge gulp from the bottle to wash down the tears threatening to spill, you grab your equipment and lay it before you on the bed. You fill your pipe with some nice fat rocks and light the bottom before sucking in the rush of burn and a bitter taste not unlike bathroom cleaner and plastic. You’re so used to it that it doesn’t make you cough till you puke anymore which you’re thankful for because you’d be vomiting booze and stomach acid, considering. You can’t recall when you last ate. Nor can you be bothered to care right now. 

You alternate back and forth, using the whiskey as a chaser to take away the harshness of the toxic burn of using the pipe, and eventually, it becomes a sort of rhythm like the loud thumping of your heart.

Oh wait, that’s the fucking door again.

Well, fuck whoever. You’re fine as you are. This is how Trevor Philips spends his holidays, dammit.

As you take another hit, you feel yourself slide back onto the bed, a sense of euphoria rushing through you. You wish every fucking minute could be like this where you don’t have to feel anything at all. You feel safe in your own skin, you can actually feel a sort of calmness take over your brain that comes in waves, like you can think clearly. You don’t have to think about the outside world here if you don’t want to. Your dysfunctional family never existed. You never moved around. You had a loving family. You graduated. You fly for the Royal Canadian Air Force. You’re their best pilot. King of the skies. No Lester. No Brad. No Moses. No rotating faces of cons. No former strippers named Amanda or Krystal or whatever. No kids haunting you with their cries. No Michael Townley piercing you with his ocean blue eyes. 

Wait, what the fuck?

The room shifts and spins, and you’re vaguely aware you’re no longer alone as a familiar face stares down at yours, frowning at the pipe in your hand. 

Goddamn, didn’t you lock the fucking door?

You retrace your steps or at least try to, but nowhere in your head can you remember flipping the lock being in them, and you mentally curse yourself. “T’what do I owe the pleasure, Mikey?” you purr, a slight slur to your voice.

He plucks the pipe from your hand and puts it on the dresser, careful not to touch it with his skin. “I came to invite you over for Christmas, but it looks like I have to get you clean first just to get you in the goddamn door now,” he answers bitterly. “You can’t leave that shit alone for one minute?”

You don’t know why, but suddenly, everything is just downright hilarious. From the fact that he looks like he’s about to have an aneurysm all the way down to his paltry concern for you has you laughing like one of those fucking hyenas straight out of that Roger Rabbit flick.

For a split second, Michael looks dangerously close to the days you’d find yourself getting nailed in the face by your dad’s fist as that is how he looks in this fucked up moment, but he shakes his head and grabs you by your collar instead. “What the hell is so funny??”

“You!” you giggle, clutching at your sides, tears streaming down your face. “Me! All of this!” 

He throws you back against the bed in disgust. “You’re a fucking disgrace, T, God. This isn’t funny.”

“No, it really is,” you retort, taking huge gulps of air in order to calm yourself down. “You really think you can just come in here and expect me to be sitting here like I’m some happy dumbfuck just waiting for you and Amanda to tell me when it’s OK to come in again? Did it ever occur to either of you that I have feelings that you both just keep fucking with??”

Michael went to say something but closed his mouth and looked down at the floor instead. 

You shake your head and take a swig from the bottle of Canadian Mist. “Here, I’ll drink since that seems to be an OK vice in your book, right?”

He sits next to you on the bed and knocks his knee gently against your left one. In the old days, that was his way of getting your attention, of making up, but now you don’t know what it means, and it makes you nostalgic and melancholy. “Any way I can have a drink of that?”

You pass the bottle over. “Help yourself.”

Time passes as you both listen to music playing on the TV. In another lifetime, you both would’ve easily found each other on this bed, but now everything is awkward.

You force yourself to not blame Amanda, but goddamn...why, why did everything happen the way it did? Why did she end up having to hate you so fucking much again? She acts like you fired the guns that pierced his skin, for fuck's sake.

And you see her fucking him in your mind’s eye, and thanks to the haze in your brain from the ice, you can see yourself as her riding him...you have to bite your hand to stifle a cry and moan, and that’s when Michael’s attention is on you. “Trev, hey T...what’s wrong?” 

His words are slurred just a bit, you notice he finished the bottle, and you wonder momentarily if he was already drinking before he came over. “Have you been drinking again?”

His eyes dart away embarrassedly, but his flushed face is a telltale sign. “I’m not a lightweight. I’m fine,” he mumbles, waving you off as if you’re nothing more than an annoying insect.

“But you bitched at me, you fucking hypocrite!” 

His eyes are shut tightly, ignoring you, but you poke him in the chest repeatedly until he finally relents and opens them, screaming at you, “OK, FINE!! I don’t want to find you dead, you fucking idiot!” Then he shuts them again.

You want to blush and feel good, but depression has such a grip on you, you wonder what it fucking matters in the end. He’s with her as he always is, and you’re just alone. You turn away.

It doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Trevor?”

“Just go home,” you try to say as steadily as you can, but your voice is on the brink of cracking. “Go back to your wife and kids. I’m no one.” Michael’s warm hand grips at your shoulder, and you curse yourself. 

“What do you mean, ‘I’m no one?’ You’re family.”

You whisper dejectedly into the comforter of the bed, “You and Amanda have an odd way of showing it.”

He tries to pull you toward him, but you finagle out his arms each time. “Come on, just come over with me. Tracey misses your tea parties, and Amanda misses you even if she doesn’t want to admit it. She calls your name in her sleep sometimes, so maybe she feels guilty for kicking your ass out.”

Your face goes bright scarlet, and you don’t know why. If it were anyone else, you’d have a smartass remark by now, but for some reason, you just can’t fucking make the connections to do it, probably because Michael still has no idea that you fucked his wife behind his back. And you’re pretty sure it would be the end of you if he did. 

Of course, you _do_ have that deathwish...but you can’t die with him hating you. You don’t want to die by his hands. And you don’t want the dreams of you both together, the possibilities, to die either. 

You cross the room to your pipe and reload it, flicking on your lighter and taking another hit while deep in thought. 

Maybe it _would_ be better just to get it out. Just rip open the wound. Point out that it had been her idea. That she had _promised_ the idea of you all as a trio again, but she...she had just used you and then tossed you in the snow like a used condom when things got too sticky, real, and all over the place. 

At least then you’d have a sense of finality. Maybe...maybe.

But when you stare into his eyes, the words die on your lips. You can’t do it. You _can’t_ tell him. You can’t break his heart like that, and you can’t die knowing _you_ broke it. You’d rather he just be tired of you and pull the fucking trigger than to go out like that, so you sigh and take a few more hits off your pipe. 

“That shit is going to kill you, T,” he says, watching you as if he’s a parent holding your hair back while you vomit after your first time drinking. 

“Yep,” you say as you exhale vapor towards the ceiling. The effects are really starting to hit you now that you’ve been able to smoke nearly the whole baggie finally. You realize it’s taking a little more and a little longer to take effect, but that’s how this game is played, isn’t it? 

He eyes you carefully, pensively. “Do you _want_ to die?”

You load the last big rock you have left and shrug while you flick your lighter again.

He sits up and takes a long hard look at you and then gestures at you. “Put the fucking pipe down and c’m’ere.”

The lazy way he pats at the spot by him on the bed reminds you of simpler times when it was just the two of you, and even though it looks so incredibly inviting to just lay there next to him, to let him curl his fingers around your hair again while you fall into a blissful sleep, you feel the same hopeless waves of sadness and bitter anger grab at your heart because you know that it’s never meant to last, not like in those days. He won’t be there when you wake up. You won’t get to gaze into his eyes and find him smiling down at you while you talk about your plans for the day. 

You don’t even get the luxury of waking up between him and Amanda like some happy graceful pet, stretching out and waiting to be loved on and attended to. You don’t get to help raise that little darling girl who already has you wrapped around her little chubby fingers, eyes sparkling like the sky, just like her daddy.

But you’re stubborn because _fuck_ him, who does he think he is?

“I’m not asking ya, Trevor. I’m telling,” he says in that serious, _no-bullshit_ voice he usually reserves for jobs, but he’s been known to use it on you too, and when you look in his eyes, they’re darker than normal, his pupils are pretty blown. 

Oh, _that’s_ right, he’s Michael fucking Townley, the permanent owner of your heart. 

You trudge miserably towards him and plop back on the bed. Part of you wishes you could just get under the covers and be alone, but another part of you wants to be in his arms forever, listening to that voice tell you what to do, how he likes it, how you’ll like it too….

And another part of you wants to fuck him into this bed and listen to him grunt and squeal in delight like you know his repressive ass can. 

You groan into your hands. _Fuck_ your stupid life. 

He bumps shoulders with you, just like the old days. “You already scared me once, you fucking dickweed. You’d better not be trying to take the easy way out on me.” He rests his head gently onto your left shoulder. “I won’t fucking let you.”

You want to be comforted by the knowledge that he cares, but all you can think is that if anyone could perfect the art of torture, it _would_ be this motherfucker, _goddamn_. Your emotions are stuck somewhere between laughing and crying, and so you let out a strangled choke. “You...you are one twisted piece of shit, Michael. You really would rather me live and suffer just to satisfy your need to have me around when you want me. And people call _me_ a psycho,” you laugh out humorlessly.

“If you’re suffering, it’s because it’s your own damn fault.” Red flashes into your vision, but before you can even think about busting his head off the wall repeatedly, he puts up his hands and commands, “Hear me out.”

“Make it fucking quick,” you ground out, biting your tongue so much you can taste the metallic tang of your blood.

He takes your hands in his and holds tightly, somehow knowing you’d try to pull back. “You could do so many things with the money from your takes, but instead you run back to that shit. You could have a nice little apartment, and we could hang out and be together when you aren’t over at the house, ya know? If you could just act like a normal goddamn person and get off that shit.” He looks deeply into your eyes again, pleading with you, but for what? “You weren’t always like this.”

And you try hard to remember when those times were and realize they belong to a place where he exchanged you for Krystal Amanda, so you exchanged him for crystal meth. Because both hurt you so, so much and are so good at it. 

You just want them both to finish the job they started.

“I’ve always been something. I’m always what someone else has made me,” you bite back, not sure what answers he’s looking for in you, but he’s not going to find them in you here. Asking you to live may as well be asking for the moon at this point. You don’t really care if you live _or_ die, which is what it boils down to right now. Both are meaningless, two sides of the same boring coin, and some days you feel like flipping it; others you can’t be bothered. That’s really all it is. 

He sighs. “Are you coming over for Christmas?”

You think about it, let it mull around in your head, wondering if you can maintain this façade he wants of the ideal life in his head. Can you play the part of the straight guy by day who’s the co-worker and long-time best friend, sometimes uncle to the kids, banging the wife on the side, beers at the bar, and then going on extended vacations away to be what you truly are when no one's watching?

The pitiful look on his face as he finds a spot in the wall where there’s peeling paper that's rather fascinating makes you believe that you can try just for him. You can swallow everything down and mask your true emotions as much as possible around him. 

So you smile to yourself and ask, “What’s my present if I do it?”

He perks up suddenly and looks at you as if you’d just promised to penetrate Fort Knox with him. “So you really will?” He reaches out to stroke the weeks-old stubble on your cheek, and you find yourself wishing that maybe a new razor had gone on your list of shit to shoplift the last time you were out. You don’t want to lean into him because leaning into him is borrowing hope again, and you’re too exhausted to do that anymore, but in the dead of winter, you feel like a single pansy wrapped in your white sheets, aching to feel the warmth of the sunshine that Michael brings with him. 

You nod sulkily like a little boy but bask in his rays anyway. “I guess I can, dammit.”

Fingers thread themselves through the greasy strands of your hair, and he makes a face. “Jesus, T, you do know there’s working hot water here, right?”

You want to feel offended, but part of you knows he’s not wrong. Depression just does that to you and always has. It sucks your will to live and the energy to do anything about it which is why you’re always trying to suck more back in when you hit the pipe. Give and take, take and give. It’s all about balance, you lie to yourself constantly. 

“You do know I don’t give a fuck, right?” you quip hostilely with a smirk. “No one invited you in, _Michael_ , so either tell me what my consolation prize is for coming to your party and playing the part of the happy best bud by day and jilted not-quite-ex by night or get the fuck out.” You point in the direction of the door as you sink back into the covers. 

Breathe, count to five, he’s not going anywhere, don’t panic -- _un, deux, trois, quatre, cin_ \--

You don’t even make it all of the way through five before he curses softly and turns to look at you with a sheepish smile. “I’ll let you do anything you want.”

Your tongue races out of your mouth to put moisture back onto your lips as you swear it’s all been sucked dry from you after having been gifted that. Does he have any idea what he offers here? Is this just another game to him, another way to pull at your heartstrings and get dumb ol’ Trevor to do what Mikey wants, or does he actually know what he’s doing? 

“Anything?” You stare at him darkly, gaze half-lidded and penetrating deep into his soul to see if you can figure him out, but wistfully in the back of your brain, you think it won’t be today. You won’t even figure him out in a whole lifetime of pondering over what makes Michael tick.

He blushes and squirms underneath you, spreads his jeaned legs open just slightly without even a thought as he turns his head to the side, and your mouth takes you straight to his pulse, seeks it out to suckle there as if you need reassurance that he’s indeed there, and it’s not some drug-induced hallucination while your right hand slides between his legs to cup him and feel the warmth there. 

You give a little squeeze and ask again, more firmly, “ _Anything_ , Mikey?”

He nods his head vigorously and whimpers like an affection-starved puppy. “Anything,” comes out so low and strangled, it’s a wonder you hear it at all, and he takes a deep breath and tries again. “Anything, fuck, I just _need_ you.”

Teasing the zipper down slowly with your fingers, you cluck your tongue at him and shake your head. “Oh, I see how it is. You _need_ me when you need to get that pretty little ass fucked good and raw because at the heart of everything you are, you’re a goddamn slut.” You help him ease out of his acid wash jeans and boxers and then grasp him at the base, stroking lazily upward with the tip of your tongue poking out of your lips in complete concentration on the face of the man beneath you. He’s flushed from the greatest fever he’ll ever know of his life and gloriously beautiful and coming apart in your careful hands. “Just _look_ at you, Mikey,” you chastise him. “You come over here for what? It’s not enough to fuck Amanda and her friends and whatever little side pieces you find along the roadside, but you _think_ you can just waltz in here and get a piece of me too?? That T will just bend over like a good little girl just like everyone else, huh??” 

God help you, you don’t know where this anger is coming from and you want to blame the drugs, but Jesus Christ, you don’t think it’s just that anymore. This is something sick that’s been growing inside of you for a while, something that’s been building because you’re tired of being treated like shit by everyone you love. 

And Michael is looking back at you with the most god-awful erotic expression in his eyes. “Please, T, _faster_ ,” he whines not unlike a rebellious brat, “I _need_ you to go faster.”

Oh really? So it’s going to be that game? 

You snarl and come to a sudden stop, reminding him who’s actually the leader this time around. “It doesn’t matter how fast _you_ want to go, that’s the beauty in this. But you never answered my question, Mikey. Quit dodging my fucking questions if you want me to give you the experience of a lifetime, _Comprenez-vous_??”

Michael throws an arm over his face, trying to hide his embarrassment for some reason, but the way his cock hardens, it becomes painfully clear that hearing you speak another language is a one-way ticket to fucking Hornytown, _oh ho ho_ , and he doesn’t want you to see it.

You giggle amusedly to yourself and begin your ministrations on him again, finding it not only hot that he’s turned on by French, but you also can’t help feeling that it’s cute, and now you’re blushing because it’s _ARGH FUCK JUST ANOTHER FUCKING PAINFUL SIGN FROM LIFE_. 

“ _J’adore_... _putain de merde_! Why, why Michael! Why do you do this to me? _Nous sommes comme des pièces d'un puzzle! N_ _ous sommes faits pour être ensemble_...you _can’t_ be that fucking clueless!” you rage against him, long-held sentiments pouring from you in tears and sweat and punches and love and any other way your body can unleash them, and he’s just there, taking it all in with a wretched leer on his face.

But his eyes don’t look like he’s there with you...it’s like he’s been transported back to another time, and it’s only then that you realize what the fuck you’ve done, what he’s done, and that you’ve probably been used again. 

You sit on the edge, hugging your body, doing _anything_ to endure something that isn’t some shitty as fuck feelings, and arms snake around you, tugging you toward the very thing that makes you want to sink into the ground but also worship the air that is breathed. He kisses away your tears and whispers in your ear, “Please don’t stop. I’m not here for anyone else. I came for _you_.” He drags angry nails up your chest, catching a nipple, and delights in your hiss. “I need _you_.”

The heart that’s hammering within your chest needs answers, so you ask as you steel yourself and stare out at the disgustingly stained papered wall, “Am I the only one?”

The hands that caress your body still themselves. “The only _what_?”

You flip over and look him in the eyes, needing to know the truth, and this is the only way to do it. This is the closest way you’ve got to a fucking lie detector on this asshole, and if he so much as squints the wrong way, you’ll know, _you’ll know_ , and it’ll break your goddamn heart. 

But some things you just have to know. “I know you’ve fucked other women. We both know you’ve never been loyal to Amanda at all, for fuck’s sakes, but I need to know, Michael,” you say, punctuating each syllable like you’re driving a knife straight into his fucking heart if he, indeed, _has_ one, “am _I_ the only guy?”

His bright blue eyes don’t waver once from yours, but he doesn’t say anything as you stare each other down like this is some sexual version of Russian roulette. Part of you is afraid of the meaning behind his non-answer, and another part of you tries to explain away everything like he’s trying to protect you or that it just simply means that he had some fling before you that he doesn’t want you to take the wrong way. 

Fuck, you just want your mind to shut up and turn off, and there’s really only one way you know how to do that. 

You feel like you should ransack the nightstand for some sort of lube, but screw him. After all he’s put you through in under a decade, a slight tearing of his asshole wouldn’t even be enough pain to _hope_ to reach the amount he’s left you in, so his saliva will have to do. “Come here and slob this knob if you want it to hurt less because that’s all you’re going to get tonight.”

His eyes slide back into some sort of place which is neither here nor there or not even in this dimension, and he nods obediently but somewhat stupidly as he looks at your prick before he swallows it without another thought. It’s so fucking warm, and it takes every single ounce of control to not just fuck his pretty lips and jizz all over them because you’d love to see what that looks like and what the shoe looks like on the other foot for once, but your heart is too kind when it comes to him. You just don’t have it in you to be that mean. 

When you look at him, you see yourself staring back at you: shattered children, abused boys, affectionate men, yearning lovers, just wanting to be free. 

But he’s never figured out how to be free.

And you don’t know how to help him get there because he never lets you. It’s much too late. Much too late, too many regrets. 

It feels as if he’s sucking the goddamn life from you or hopes to like some sperm-craving emotional vampire, and before the familiar fires can pull at your groin, you tap his shoulder and push him back onto the bed roughly, but your voice falters slightly as you try to tell him, “I think we’re good enough,” and it comes out like a squeak. 

He smirks, blue eyes twinkling. Motherfucker knows just how good he is now. Should’ve _never_ put it in his head and inflated his goddamn ego about how good he is at this because the worst thing in the world is a smug Mikey who knows he’s good at something.

But ridiculously, it’s also the best thing in the world too.

You push his legs apart to open him up a bit wider and push them back a bit towards him because you’re going to fuck that stupid sexy smile right the hell off his pretty little face. Fuck him fuck him fuck him for coming in here and making you feel so many things--

Ahhhh like especially how fucking good he feels when you work yourself into him. Christ, why does he have to feel like he was custom-made to fit you? It’s always been this way, it’s always been some crazy shit that almost -- _almost_ \-- has you believing that soulmates could exist. 

You lock your fingers together with his and look into his eyes. This isn’t just sex anymore, goddamn you idiot, this _isn’t_ fucking, _Trevor_. This is _love_ , you _dildo-for-brains_! _You need to stop looking at Mikey with the goddamn stars in your eyes_! You shake your head, try to set yourself right again.

Angles switch and strokes lengthen like you have all of the time in the world because hell, maybe you do, and just as you hit that sweet spot, he cries out as if he’s trying to make sure his mother can hear several states over and grabs onto you for all you’re worth. “Oh fuck _yes_ , right _there_!! More, more, more!!”

You grin down at him as you deliver that for which he begs so bluntly. “Oh, you’re so greedy, baby. I like it.” Pulling his right leg over to your mouth, you lick a long, nasty trail of spit up it and then lick his toes. “God, it’s so fucking hot seeing you like this. You’re delicious.” His grunts increase and his usually fair skin flushes everywhere. You can tell he’s getting closer, so you cradle him in your right hand and move closer towards him which also sends you deeper inside, causing him to shiver and sigh. “Do you wanna know a little secret?”

His eyes are still closed tightly, but he nods. “Oh God, _please_.”

And here you are emotionally raw and vulnerable, but so is he when he gives himself to you like this, so you feel like you can give this piece of you to him if he can offer this to you. As you pump deeper and harder into him, stroke him faster and watch him squirm about, coming undone, you whisper to him, “It’s always been you, Mikey. I don’t touch any other guys. I don’t love anyone else. I’ll never love anyone else but you. I won’t, I won’t as long as you live.”

And he screams his release into your hand and onto himself while you empty every bit of yourself into him, calling his name, peppering him with love and kisses. 

But he still can’t say he loves you when he dresses and leaves. He can’t even offer much of a response beyond being in some sort of a daze, so you tell him you’ll see him at the party and sadly send him on his way.

Is it miserable to cry yourself to sleep? As that’s all you have now that you’ve smoked all of the crank, and the booze is all gone. And everything hurts too much to move now. 

* * *

The shitty fake oak door comes into view with an even shittier fake Christmas wreath attached to it, and you wonder again for the seventh time today why the stupid hell you agreed to come to this damn thing. You’re pretty sure it’s only going to be you at this because there’s no way in all fuck that Amanda would invite Brad, Moses, or any other fucking lowlife, and Lester wouldn’t be caught dead out of his lair doing the family thing on Christmas. So why are _you_ here?

But the boxes in your hands weigh heavy on your mind, your body, and your heart, so you remember why you’re here as you kick the door with your foot. 

The bane of your existence opens the fucking thing. “Oh, it’s you,” she grouches and leans in the doorway, barring you from coming in. “I don’t recall inviting you to this.”

You roll your eyes. Of course, she didn’t. You already knew that. “Well, you might want to take it up with Mikey, sweet cheeks, instead of busting my chops. I’m freezing my nuts off, and there are gifts for the kids.”

“Better not be any fucking junior bomb-building kits in there,” she mumbles as she turns to look for what you suspect would be the man of the hour who’s about to get his ass reamed. “And I _hate_ when you call him Mikey like he’s a goddamn Kindergartener. He’s a grown man.” 

“Can’t teach the kiddos to make bombs until their fine motor skills are better, Amanda, and they also need to be able to understand the finer points of _why_ they’d be making those bombs and blowing up the establishment, _duh_ ,” you laugh at her. “And did it ever occur to you to ask Mikey what he actually _prefers_ to be called?”

She fumes and hollers out, “Michael! Company!” 

You wince and damn yourself internally because this isn’t how you wanted all of this to go. You didn’t come to start shit. You just wanted to give the kids their fucking presents, make nice, maybe pretend to have some semblance of a family for the holiday, and go then go cry yourself to death back at your shithole, mission accomplished. Shouldn’t have to be so fucking hard. 

So why do you have to make it so fucking hard with your stupid mouth?

“Amanda, look,” you offer apologetically, “I have stuff for the kids, and yes, it’s normal. I don’t know if it’s, uh, age-appropriate one-hundred percent because I don’t know anything about that shit,” you mutter and notice her glaring at you as if you’d just casually mentioned you were boxing up porn mags and drugs for kids now, “but I got Tracey this CD player for little kids with pre-programmed shit, and I wasn’t sure what to get Jimmy...uh, maybe he can grow into it eventually?” You hand her a box that says All In One Band. 

She looks back and forth between the toys and then to you, sighing loudly. “OK, I guess I can’t complain because these _are_ cute. You did good, Trevor.” She points to the couch which currently has two people climbing all over each other on it who you don’t know. “Go sit next to my sister and her boyfriend, and I’ll see if I can track down where the fuck _Michael_ ran off to.”

The way she says _Michael_ and looks at you like it’s a fucking challenge…. What. The. Fuck. Is going on here.

She saunters off, and you just about make your way to the couch to sulk by the two fuckwits sucking face when you notice the playpen jammed over by the tree and see the sleeping angel inside you haven’t laid eyes on in a few weeks. You lean down to smooth the hair out of her face and feel a fucking presence at your back that just smells of dickweed cop. 

“Who the fuck are you?” it breathes down your neck.

“You must be the boyfriend of the next titless wonder in the family,” you purr serenely back into his neck. “I’m Mikey’s best friend, and you need to learn to respect personal boundaries.”

The motherfucker scoffs. “If you’re Michael’s best friend, why haven’t I heard of you?” You hear the cow behind him snigger, and you look around impatiently for any sign of any fucking person you know. 

“That’s a good question, whatever the fuck your name is, which I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to. Maybe Amanda would care to have an answer for it since she has so many of those these days that I’m not privy to,” you snap bitterly, wishing this dipshit would take a hint and leave you the fuck alone or someone, any fucking one, would come to your rescue before this takes a turn for the worse. You didn’t come here to start shit, dammit. You _swear_ you didn’t. 

But you’re going to put your foot so far up his ass, you’re going to be able to count your toes if he doesn’t back the fuck away.

Incredulously, it’s the sister cow on the couch chewing away at her gum who comes to your rescue. “Ah Chad, cut it out. I’m pretty sure Mandy has mentioned Michael having a few friends from work before. They’re just out of town a lot.” She grins widely at you and shakes her beer at you. “Isn’t that right...uh, what the hell is your name again?”

You breathe a sigh of relief, never thinking you’d be any happier than you are now for a member of Amanda’s fucking crazy stripping family. You grin back at her, hoping she can read the gratefulness in your eyes. “Trevor.”

She squeals so loudly, she starts hacking and has to pull out a little yellow inhaler. After sucking wildly from it a few times, she blushes shyly and mumbles something about asthma before she beats her knees like a maniac, giggling, “Oh my God, you’re the one I’ve heard about!” And she looks at you conspiratorially, like she knows shit she shouldn’t know but somehow does.

And goddammit, now you need to know what it is too. “Excuse me but huh?”

Her eyes dart around, and she whispers behind her hand as if Amanda’s in the room. “Sis says so much shit about you, it’s fucking hilarious.”

Oh, that fucking bitch. “Really now?” You grit your teeth.

She laughs and nods, patting you on the back. The action puts you on edge, and it doesn’t go unnoticed. “Oh, she’d fucking _hate_ me if I told you, and I don’t care. I can’t stand her stupid holier-than-thou act.”

Chad shakes his head at the both of you. “Whatever. I’m going to grab another beer from the kitchen.”

“Yeah, grab me and Trevor one too, babe,” she yells after him. “We have so much to talk about!” She looks you in the eyes, smiling wickedly like a kid with her hand in the cookie jar. “While we can.”

And in a barely ten-minute chat, you figure out a few things thanks to Angela -- who tells you that Mother Dearest gave all of her girls names beginning with the letter “a” that conveniently fit into the lifestyle with the other sister being named Analisa who also moonlights as a dominatrix “in the big city,” apparently. You find out that Amanda was attracted to you and Brad first, but Michael sweet-talked his way into her ass which is something you had already figured out though it's oddly reassuring to know you weren’t wrong. Michael was “stable” and “normal” whereas you and Brad were bad boys like she’s more used to, and Amanda was trying really hard to get away from the whole bad boy thing. She was trying to change her image and herself. She had told Angela that she felt Michael could offer that, but there was a cog in the wheel that wasn’t working as planned, and that was his ambitions and lifestyle. 

She had told Angela about you and Michael. Oh God. You nearly panic right out of your fucking skin.

Until she murmurs silkily in your ear that she understands the whole thing because she has a _best friend_ like that too that Chad doesn’t know about, and you stare at her as if she just said the sky is green.

She grins merrily back at you. 

You also find out that Amanda and Michael have been fighting a lot. Over his work. Over you. Over his “oddball feelings” as Amanda puts it for you. Amanda wants you completely gone because she feels that you’re competition for her, and she’s also confused about her attraction to you as well. Michael refuses to do that because you came first and that bugs the fuck out of Amanda, but she’s wearing more and more on him.

“My sister can be pretty good about getting her way. She always has been,” Angela grumbles into her beer. “Do you think I’d be here if I _wanted_ to be?” Chad laughs from behind her. “I’d rather be getting boned by Chad while watching the holiday specials.” 

You clink your beer to hers. “A woman after my own heart. She’s a keeper, Chad. You’d better watch out.” He casts you a wary glance and shakes his head before taking another sip. “So where the fuck is everyone?”

Chad shrugs. “Arguing quietly in the bedroom. I thought you guys knew.”

Angela glares at the ceiling and stands up. “Jesus Christ, I guess I get to go pretend I care since Analisa and Mama aren’t around. Lucky fucking bitches.” She stalks off down the hallway, and you start laughing softly to yourself. You can’t remember the last time you’ve had this much of an interesting holiday. Jesus Christ, indeed. 

“I DIDN’T WANT HIM TO BE HERE!” erupts from the backroom suddenly. “WHY THE FUCK DID YOU INVITE HIM?!”

“BECAUSE HE’S MY BEST FRIEND, AND HE HAS NO ONE ELSE!! IT’S THE FUCKING HOLIDAYS, AMANDA!!”

You feel like a goddamn kid again. Or you’ve slid back a few years. This is fucking nostalgic, for crying out loud. Will it ever stop?

Would the floor just open up and swallow you into it?

You remember Chad previously as the huge gorilla-sized asshole cop who was breathing down your back earlier, and now he looks like he wants to feel sorry for you and offer you a hug. You’d rather he was back to being a massive prick, holy fuck.

“AMANDA, HE’S ACTUALLY A PRETTY COOL DUDE, SO I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOUR PROBLEM IS! MAYBE IT’S JUST YOU LIKE IT NORMALLY IS!” And that comes from Angela, God bless her strange soul. 

“HA! SEE, EVEN YOUR SISTER--”

“YOU DON’T WANT TO FINISH THAT THOUGHT IF YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU!”

Everything quiets back down, and soon you and Chad hear footsteps in the hallway, so the both of you stare awkwardly at the floor. Even more awkwardly for you since you’re the goddamn person being argued about. You really just want to leave, but there’s a noise coming from the playpen in the form of a yawn, and then two little pigtails pop up first, followed by eyes.

“Un’ca T!!” Her fat little arms shove themselves over the sides, and fingers flex as quickly as they can as she makes to grab for you but can only get air.

“Hey, Pigtails,” you laugh miserably. Holy fuck, she’s finally up, and you’re about to get handed the death sentence out the door. But one little hug can’t hurt, can it? It’s Christmas, after all. Fuck, it’s what you came all the way over for. You make your way over to her and lift her out, smiling at those same little yellow kitten-faced pajamas you met her in what feels like ages ago now. Holding her close to you so she can’t see the tears that are starting to form in your eyes, you ask, “Have you been a good girl?” 

You close your eyes, hoping like hell you can keep them inside.

She nods slowly and gently in that cute way that kids do. “Uh-huh.”

One slides out, fuck. This is harder than you expected. “Well good, I brought you a present.” 

She fists your shirt to get your attention and brings a tiny hand to your face, touching the stubble, finding fascination with it but also the wetness stuck within it. “Un’ca, you sad?”

“Oh, I’m not--” But as you open your eyes, not only do you realize you can’t lie to her, but everyone is staring at you and see that you are clearly standing there sobbing like a fucking fool. 

Angela is behind her sister, looking like she wishes she could slap the skin right off of her, but she has Jimmy in her hands while Michael just looks broken. He looks like a broken old man who doesn’t know what to do, like he doesn’t know who to go to more. 

And Amanda looks as if the very presence of you somehow sullies her fucking house despite the fact that it’s a goddamn trailer in the sticks. Michael’s hand is in hers, and if she stood any closer to him, they’d be fucking on top of each other. 

She reaches out to you. “I’ll take her.”

It’s as if Tracey has some sort of instinct now and knows where the fuck this is going before you even have to spell it out because her little body shrinks against you. “No!” she howls viciously. “Mommy, no!”

Oh fucking hell, not again. You can’t go through this again, not again, not now, not so soon. How can she be so fucking cruel, dammit?? You’re not some heartless bastard, and she _knows_ that, she’s _fucked_ you and _talked_ to you and _known your heart_ , for fuck’s sake. How can she do this?? She knows you love these kids more than you love your own miserable fucking self.

You can’t help it anymore. Seeing her with her fucking claws all over your goddamn _Mikey_ , bitching about names of all things when _he’s_ the one who’s particular about names, thinking about those two together while you’re miserable and alone and he can’t say he loves you, but he can come by and beg for you, and then her wanting to rip this precious baby out of your hands again who didn’t do a fucking thing to deserve to be treated like shit--

The dam breaks, and the tears flood down your face.

“No, Un’ca, no cry,” Tracey pats your face and tries to soothe you in her babyish ways, and Christ, it just hurts more that Amanda just wants to take this away again. 

Why didn’t you just stay in your room and die?

“It’s...it’s OK, baby,” you assure her and ease her back into her playpen. You’re pretty sure you’ll upset the fuck out of her more by putting her in Amanda’s arms right now; what Amanda _wants_ be fucking damned. “I...I’ve got work to do. I need to go.” You say that for her benefit more than yours. 

She looks at you sadly but doesn’t wail, at least. “OK, love you, bye.” She must’ve been taught to say that to Michael, and it feels good to hear it, but it also squeezes your heart painfully. 

“Love you too, Pigtails.” You turn everyone else and salute. “Angela, Chad...it was fun and enlightening. Don’t be strangers on the streets. You’ll understand why I’m bowing out of the festivities early.”

Angela smiles, but its sour look is directed at her sister. “I mean, of course, but you don’t need to go. It’s Christmas.”

“She’s right, T,” Michael looks at him, his normally bright blue eyes looking rather dismal and reddened from arguing, maybe his own crying, probably a lack of sleep, and maybe even some blow to wake him up. “There’s no need to go. What else are you going to do?”

What else are you going to do?

“I don’t know, but I’m going to figure it out. Merry Christmas.”


	10. This Is Dangerous ‘Cause I Want You So Much (New Years’ 94/95)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So leave me in the cold  
> Wait until the snow covers me up  
> So I cannot move  
> So I'm just embedded in the frost  
> Then leave me in the rain  
> Wait until my clothes cling to my frame  
> Wipe away your tear stains  
> Thought you said you didn't feel pain  
> Well this is torturous electricity  
> Between both of us and this is  
> Dangerous, 'cause I want you so much  
> But I hate your guts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary and title come from another Daughter song called Landfill. 
> 
> Sorry for the wait, but I was working on this while doing the Fanzine on top of working on something else someone asked me to flesh out based on an idea from Mi Estrella Oscura. Never fear, I'm always working on this. I just need to be in a certain headspace for this, I guess I should say. Writing Trevor is definitely a mood. 
> 
> A lot of this goes along with things I've been fleshing out all along in one-shots, a sort of analysis I wrote on Tumblr about Michael and Trevor recently, along with one that someone I've collabed with on the Fanzine wrote today.
> 
> There will be some run-on type sentences later on when Trevor's high. Speed is a helluva a drug, and your mind on it is warp speed. That's the only way I can think of to simulate it. Anyway, enjoy!

In the days following what you have now labeled the Stupid Ass Decision, everything becomes a haze of your feelings, running repeatedly through every damn blunderous thought you’ve ever had, memories of what was said, things you now know, what you wish you could change, and filling the holes in your soul with anything you can find to plug into them. A pretty boy with ice blue eyes here, a well-stacked redhead who reminds you a little too much of Mother maybe there, some crank to wake you up, dope to dull the pain, weed to lull you into some sort of relaxed state to where you can try to find sleep, and booze to take you the rest of the way there. 

One day, you find yourself in the tub, asleep with the water nearly over you, having long since gone frigid, and you think that’s what’s maybe finally woken you up, but no, it’s probably the fact that fluid is starting to slosh into your nostrils, and your brain’s stupid self-preservation system has kicked into high gear. Why can’t you let yourself just sleep? Why do you have to think about the consequences of death? As if anyone gives a damn if something happens to you?

No one’s even come by to pound at the door since Christmas, and you eye it angrily as if by staring at it, you can will someone to care enough to come to it, but you know better. 

New Year’s Eve arrives before you’re even ready for it, and you’re really still not used to celebrating these by yourself. You wouldn’t even go outside of your room if there wasn’t a craving in your body for more to drink and something proper to ring in the year. After one quickly-placed call to your guy for a meet and greet, you throw on your battered old Bomber jacket, and meander out the door, trying to avoid the gazes of happy couples making their ways through the streets to the bars, keen on celebrating without a courtesy to anyone else in the world. 

Briefly, you wonder if you plunged yourself into the snow and left yourself there, would anyone notice. Would they find you before the first thaw?

That horrible itch you need to scratch comes back that’s part sexual need and part desire to rid yourself of that depressiveness that weighs heavily on you. There’s only one way you know of to rid yourself of that sickening feeling, and the closer you get to your meeting place, the lighter your steps feel, and the faster your heart races within your chest. Suddenly, you’re the kid, and it’s _your_ Christmas morning. There are presents waiting on you, and you’ll stomp on any motherfucker who gets in your way between you and your fucking tree. 

The dark humor of the situation isn’t lost on you that this fuckwad’s trailer is in the same fucking mobile home park as good ol’ Mikey and Amanda, but he’s at least towards the opposite end from them, so you don’t have to run into any faces you don’t want to see, and thank fuck for that because you don’t think you can handle that right now. The wounds are still too fresh, too raw. 

It hurts when you think or dream about him. 

The older style ugly faded piss yellow and prison orange trailer comes into view, and your feet hurry up the rest of the way, giddy to reach the door and collect what’s yours. You’ve waited for your present entirely too fucking long, and you’re also antsy and don’t want to be here anymore. Being here just _feels_ like being within the same breathing distance as Michael, and that’s too much. 

Paranoia creeps back under your skin, and you shake to rid yourself of it before banging on the outer glass storm door. 

A deep voice bellows from behind. “That you, Trevors?”

You really wish you didn’t have to deal with this fucking fat sack of shit, but he is the supplier for his cousin who makes the best shit this side of Granville, and if you can ever figure out the logistics of making it yourself, you swear you’ll do it, but that’s a project to file away for a rainy day. 

He’s just one of many around here who don’t know your real name because he’s nothing more than another face to you, a means to an end. Only the important people in your life get access to that.

And they’re getting fewer and fewer every day, unfortunately. 

“Yeah, I’m here to see the fat jolly man in red for my presents,” you holler through the closed door. “Sorry, I’m a bit late for Christmas.”

The damning device that separates you from your date with destiny parts open and creaks as it does, and a portly man peeks his long-bearded head from out behind it, sneering and laughing at you. His belly jiggles, nearly spilling over the contents of his jeans, and you can’t help but watch, mesmerized slightly, reminded of cups of Jello waiting to burst forth once opened. “Well, there ain’t no jolly man in red here, and I don’t do Christmas, but I do have presents if you got cash.”

He holds out a chubby, clawed hand gripping what you so desperately need right now. You lick your lips. “Yeah, yeah, let’s get this over with. Don’t have time to play with our dicks today.” 

You know you need to slow down because you’re practically shoving money into his lard ass, but you feel like there’s eyes on you, and you just want the fuck out of here. Plus, the sooner this is in your system, the better you can begin to feel. 

But he can tell something is up, and that makes _him_ uneasy. “Whoa, buddy. What the fuck is the rush today? I know _you’re_ the last person with a party to go to.”

OK, _don’t_ cut this fucker’s head off and shit down his throat. He’s your bloodline to this, Trevor. What are you going to do without it?

_Oh holy fuck, Mikey is right. Goddammit no._

“Why the fuck would you assume that about me? Maybe I’m a fucking delight to be around,” you bitch back irritably. “You’re my dealer, not my goddamn counselor.”

You think that biting his head off would have the opposite effect intended, but instead, it settles the guy back down, and he giggles violently, holding his stomach. “Oh good Christ, let’s be glad for that, right? I was just curious.” He shrugs as he counts the bills you gave him. 

You sigh and try to act less twitchy to appease this stupid fucker so you can get out of here now that the product is like a hot rock warming your fist with the glow of its mysterious love. “I just, uh, let’s say my ex lives here too, and leave it at that, OK. I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to be.” 

He looks at you with something akin to sympathy and understanding -- or as close as it gets on a fatass old hairy biker. “Ah shit, man, I get that. Broads, am I right? Only good for one thing.”

“Yeah,” you mumble unenthusiastically and pretend to nod as you look at your watch. “Oh fuck, will you look at the time! I actually do have a party to go to, and I’m the life of it. Can’t run late. Thanks again, Rooster.” You back off the steps so fast, you nearly fall into the snow and bust your ass, but catch yourself at the last minute and grin up at him. He shakes his head and slams his door, and you stare up at the sky.

Jesus Christ, that was too goddamn close. What the fuck has gotten into you, you spastic-acting motherfucker? This was never this fucking hard before, and you eat this kind of shit for breakfast. What has got you on edge??

Panic grips you again as you feel limbs, branches, brush, and other things shift out of the corners of your eyes as if something is following, and you start to wonder if ol’ Mikey isn’t around, after all, but then laugh at the absurdity of it all because it’s New Year’s Eve, and his fat keister is going to be planted on his couch watching his balls drop under Amanda’s--

Nevermind. 

Your feet carry you as quickly as you can manage back to your room at the Heartbreak Roach Motel, but you try to keep your senses peeled for any weird bullshit, and when there’s nothing even so much as a cat’s fart out of the normal, you breathe an uneasy sigh of relief, thinking all’s good. The baggie of shit goes in the drawer by your bedside along with the rest of your gear, and you prepare yourself again to go to the liquor store this time around. 

Things aren’t so golden this goddamn time around. Of all the fucking people to run into, it has to be Brad with a hooker on each arm. Seriously, they _have_ to be bought and paid for because no self-respecting, good-looking women would be hanging and giggling off his fucking arms like he's the most interesting man on the planet with actual shit to say. 

“Trev, my man! What the fuck are you doing out here with nothing to do? Why aren’t you living it up?” 

A meaty hand claps you on the back, just about knocking you squarely on your bony ass, and you grit your teeth while trying to remember that Lester will give you plenty of hell if you give him a body to have to hide. “I don’t feel all that well, so I’m just getting me my own shit and staying in.”

Brad gets that look in his eyes that’s almost as if a light bulb is trying to turn on but isn’t quite making the connection so it’s misfiring much to your goddamn annoyance. “Well, we can just come hang out with you, isn’t that right, ladies?” He grins widely, not unlike a mangled Chesire cat. 

The two women next to him look confused and eye each other before they gaze at you, and you hope that the slight shake of your head is enough to get them to understand that you most definitely do _not_ want to party together while you begin convincing the dumbass before you that you really aren’t in the mood. “Look, man, I’m a downer right now, and you’ve already got these two gorgeous vixens tugging at your arms,” you give them both a pointed look from which they catch their hint and begin to pull and whine at him, “so why don’t you just go enjoy the night, OK? We’ll see each other soon enough.” _Probably too soon_. 

He looks like he’s really thinking about saying something, but it’s much too late as the women are already guiding him away, and you’re well on your way in the other direction. 

Thank fuck for small favors. 

Your favorite store -- and the town’s _only_ liquor store that doesn’t lock its doors at sundown because of being run by old folks -- comes into view quickly after tromping down a few more mush-filled blocks where you still can’t quite shake the feeling that something is nearly breathing down your back like a giant dragon waiting to pounce once you’ve let down your guard, but every time you look, there’s nothing there. You pause to sigh the tension hopefully away before you bring up your hand to push the door open and then wave to the middle-aged woman who would rather be anywhere on this night but there, except she, like you, has nowhere to be. 

“Hiya, Marge!” you quip as pleasantly as you can muster as you march toward the beer section and look for your familiar Moosehead. “What’s shaking, beautiful?”

“Fuck y’self, Trevors.” Her gravely alto voice rings out from behind her issue of Women’s World without even once eyeballing you like she does some of the others because she knows you’re harmless by now. You just want your booze and to “git,” and she respects that somehow. 

As you grab a six-pack and take a quick gander at the rest of the merchandise on your way to the register, you delight in torturing her by making small talk because you have nothing better to do, and you also delight in torturing yourself somewhat too. “So any plans for tonight, sweetheart?”

One lazy gray eye peeks up over the magazine and gazes at you resentfully. “Obviously nothin’ besides coddlin’ the asses of ilk such as you and others up and unto closin’ time,” she huffs. “After that, it’s anyone’s guess.” 

It’s just harmless ribbing, and she’s Mother’s age...even looks close to her in a certain light. She’d be beautiful if she actually cared to take of herself, you think, but she doesn’t and has even gone as far as to tell you before that she hates sex about as much as she hates people, which is a lot. 

Someone got to her once too. Someone a long time ago, and you want to feel for her, but all you can feel is just a kindred spirit in her because she doesn’t want you to _feel_ for her. And you don’t really want to _feel_ either. 

You sidle up to the counter with your six-pack. “So I’m not doing anything and --”

A bottle of Wiser’s Rye pounds the glass, snapping you out of your train of thought. “Buy this and shut the fuck up, ya fuckin’ Canuck.” There’s no smile on her face, but you can see the ghost of it as she gives you that hardened stare. Her lips twitch just for a fraction of a second.

You nod to yourself. It’s enough. “Will do, Marge. As always, it’s a pleasure.” You smile widely for her in return, and suddenly there’s a cough from the wine section of the store, startling you nearly out of your fucking boots. How the fuck did anyone get in without you noticing? You scratch your head and move to look, but Marge doesn’t seem too perturbed, so you shrug your shoulders and grab your change along with your booze before moving for the exit.

“Hey!” she calls after you. “Aren’t you going to wait for--”

“I got it, Margie! You’re a peach!” Well, that’s sweet of her to worry about you forgetting your money, but damn, she must be getting up there in age because did she seriously forget she’d just given you the fucking change?

That’s sad. Sad, but not your problem, right? _Right_? 

Now that you’ve got what you need, you’re starting to feel a little better about the night’s festivities, even to the point that you start to whistle as you’re walking back to the motel. It’s nice just to hear the notes and sound out the music as you feel the crisp coldness of the wintry mix that’s coming down. Your breath is before you in one lingering puff of cloudy air. There’s something else to be said for being able to just let go and _be_ for once. To feel blessedly normal. 

Then you catch the lights reflecting off different objects, buildings, and snow, cursing yourself for getting so lax that you actually stopped just _thinking_ for once, and you begin to hustle faster toward your room but try not to give off any indicators that you’re aware of their existence now. 

Who the fuck would be following you and on New Year’s of all times? Don’t these assholes take a break too, for fuck’s sake?

You honestly expect them to follow you to your room, but when you veer off towards the bushes, the car keeps going, but at the very least, you have your answer as a dark gray Esperanto speeds on by as quickly as it can on the slippery surface. 

_Mikey_. 

And now it dawns on you what Marge had been asking you to wait for, who had slipped in the liquor store, all the feelings of being followed. What the fuck is he doing?? Is he _trying_ to drive you insane? 

He’s doing a damn good job.

You place the beer in the mini-fridge to get cold and meander back outside toward the ice machine with the cracked little bucket they offer you here, which if you think about it, is a fucking statement about your entire life thus far, and it makes you laugh so hard that tears come out. That’s the point when you can no longer tell if it’s funny or just the miserable truth. 

The time on the Casio watch blinks 11:39 pm in the backlight, and you sigh heavily as you trudge back towards the room to open that bottle of rye, bless Marge’s lovely black heart. Fuck the beer right now. You need something a little stronger just to forget he exists, that you exist, that everything fucking exists right now. 

The Wiser’s does its job and burns so wonderfully like hell on the way down. As long as it numbs the pain, it’s done its job. It can taste like jet fuel as long as it melts away your feelings when it lights up, you don’t care. 

Dick Clark announces from somewhere out of thin air into your ears that it’s almost _that time to grab your loved one and kiss them_ , and you can’t remember how many of these you’ve had already when you look sadly to your left and expect Michael to just appear out of nowhere like old times, ready and waiting with that cocksure grin on his beautiful face but that forever-hesitant _am I going to Hell for this_ worry etched into his blue eyes. 

You light up the pipe and begin with them as they count down the dropping of the ball, tears forming in your eyes. 

_Five_ \-- light, inhale, exhale.

 _Four_ \-- light, inhale, exhale. 

_Three_ \-- light, inhale.

 _Two_ \-- exhale.

 _One_ \-- light, inhale.

 _Happy New Year_. Roll it inside, hold it as long as you can, burn your lungs, make yourself feel warm, warm like Mikey is forever holding onto you and kissing you, dream like it’s still old times and you’re still someone that’s wanted, pretend that you’re something even close to being what he could ever want, and it’ll feel good again. You’ll be OK. You’ll fly again. You’ll soar the skies like you were always meant to, where no one can hurt you. 

And you almost don’t want to exhale. You almost want to float forever, forget to breathe until your lungs remind you by coughing, fucking awful traitors that they are. Gulping down some of the Wiser’s eases the pain in your throat, and you’re on the edge of slipping into the sweet embrace of sleep where you can start to remember when life had been actually still good to you when there’s a knock at the door that sounds like pounding to your head. 

“Yeah, yeah,” you barely manage to mumble, spittle shooting angrily out of your mouth with each word. “Keep your pants on...or better yet, don’t.” One peek out of the window produces the familiar Esperanto. _Shit_. 

Isn’t this what you want though?

Do you even _know_ what you want?

Taking a deep breath, well aware that you are _not_ even dressed because you sure weren’t expecting company on tonight of all nights when _certain_ people are supposed to be with their goddamn families, for fuck’s sake, you swing open the door, greeting the chilly night air with teeth chattering. “Y-y-yeah?”

He pushes you inside, slamming the door behind you both, and then feverishly runs his tongue along your lips. Your mind doesn’t even need to ask because your body responds in kind, knowing what it is he wants, and gives it to him, parting your lips without another thought. His tongue is as sweet as always as it collides with yours in that satisfying way for which you yearn, and as much as your alcohol-and-drug-soaked brain wants him to continue trying to thrust his tongue down your throat, at least a part of you still has some sort of fucking sense left, unfortunately, so you pull away reluctantly and try gathering the rest of your facilities to put them back into order. 

After a few minutes, you feel safe enough to speak again. “Don’t you have a wife at home?”

He shrugs, then rolls his neck and shoulders; that fucking telling tic of his that lets you know his anxiety is starting to bleed through enough to where so he’s trying to take charge -- no, take _advantage_ , goddammit, Trevor, use proper terminology, you fuck -- of the situation. “She’s already asleep. Fucking drank so much, she won’t wake up till mid-morning.”

You want to fucking kiss him but also strangle him. Why does he have to play with you like this? “The kids?”

“Angela’s. She wasn’t too keen on coming after Christmas.”

You close your eyes in exasperation. “Shit, I wonder why the fuck not.”

He starts to laugh but then stops suddenly as if he’s not sure he’s allowed to do so, and you hate that. Everything is awkward between you two when it used to be so comfortable before. There shouldn’t be these uneasy conversations, this paused laughter, these hanging touches...nothing makes sense anymore, and you wonder if it’s your fault. Is it the stupid crank? 

You’d stop it if you knew you could remain by his side forever, but it’s not reality. So this is your reality. Needing to stop the pain, the feelings, needing to numb it all away. 

“I never meant for it to come to this, you know,” you whisper, not really sure if you’re talking to him or yourself. “It helped me to focus. I only needed a little, just a bit to focus at first so I wasn’t all over the place like a fucking basketcase like that bitch at the RCAF had complained about. It grounded me.” Tears start to fall down your cheeks as you look into his eyes. “It was supposed to _help_ me. It was supposed to help me to help _you_.” 

Your hands before you become offensive dark limbs that are just extensions of you, a miserable dark nothingness of a towering tree, and you cry out in anger, waving them frantically. “I’m fucking tired of being the one everyone leaves behind!”

Arms that are still strikingly chilled from the outdoors wrap around you to keep you from lashing out. “No one’s leaving you behind, OK. I...I understand, I _get_ it. I don’t like it, but I get it.”

“Why the fuck is it any different than you both snorting blow?” you rage indignantly. “Why am I the fuck-up?”

When he looks down, you know you struck a chord. “It’s just worse, OK? And you smoke a _lot_.”

You snort and wiggle out of his hold to plop down on your bed, crossing your arms. “Maybe you should make a fucking resolution to cut back since you have fucking children then instead of giving me grief all of the goddamn time. Then...then maybe I’d lay off too.” You say that, but deep down, you don’t know how much you mean those words, and it hurts somewhere, hurts you to know you can’t make that promise real.

Michael sighs and holds his head in his hands. “OK, OK...damn, I didn’t come here for this deep shit. I can wake up Mand if I want to get nagged at.”

“Sorry the truth hurts, motherfucker,” you gripe right back at him. “Jesus, I didn’t ask for you to come here. I just wanted to burn out brightly like any other fucking celebrity and be found in the morning in a puddle of my own blood and filth.”

He drops down next to you, and you take in the heavy pleasant smell of his Polo cologne as his left hand grazes your right knee ever so gingerly, as if testing the waters, like you two just met after a night of dancing and aren’t old lovers. “I know you didn’t ask me here, but it didn’t...it wasn’t right to do New Year’s without you.”

That’s the understatement of the year, isn't it? You huff lowly to yourself but shake your head in agreement with Michael. “Yeah, it isn’t the same without you.” 

Your arms cross over your chest because everything feels so cold and final now after saying that. It hadn’t hit you really, it just hadn’t struck until...oh God, you hate it. You hate it, and you hate him for even being here, reminding you of these goddamn stupid emotions. 

His fingers deftly link with yours, fitting as they always have, as if they never stopped being attached to you. “I thought we could do New Year’s together while we have some time, ya know?” he breathes against your ear as he places little kisses along the back of them where it’s deliciously torturous for you, and there’s a part of you that wants to just fade right into the calmness he brings just like you always have because he soothes you in the same way you set fire to his passionate soul.

But you’d rather he just leave you alone, cast you out into the cold waters of the surrounding icy lakes than to keep playing with you like this. “And then what, Mikey? You go back home to your nearly happy life, sometimes happy wife, and toss me back in the trash? Pull me back out when you feel like being dirty again?”

The body behind you halts immediately, so you think this is it. He’s going to go, and you’ll never see him again, and _Jesus Christ,_ _what the fuck did you do, Trevor? What did you do?? Are you prepared for what you did, you stupid_ \---

His grip tightens on you, and he sighs so silently, it almost doesn’t register. “Yes, that’s what I want.”

And there it is. Your life. All you’ll ever hope to be to anyone. Everyone who’s ever counted your failures is laughing at you now. 

Tears trail down your face. “I fucking hate your guts.”

Momentarily, you venture your life would’ve been better any number of times if he had left you to die or left you behind or even not come to your hanger _at all_ than to become this fucking mess of shit, but then what would you be? He’s also made you a glorious mess of shit. You’d be nothing without him. 

There’s sobbing against your back, and there’s a special sort of power and awe in the fact that this man rarely cries, but he does for you. You turn to him and bring him into your arms like Mother used to do for you during the nice times, shushing him and rubbing his shoulders. After a while, he calms down into hiccups. “I...I didn’t...d-d-didn’t mean...Trevor, I--”

“But I also love you,” you mutter calmly. “I’m a fucking idiot, I know. We,” you say, pointing to yourself and him, “ _are_ both fucking idiots. We should run in opposite directions from each other because this is eventually going to be doomed, Mikey. I can see the writing on the wall. One of us is going to piss off the other so much, and that’s going to be it.” You smile sadly into his beautiful eyes, still shiny from crying. “But...but right now, fuck it. If I have to go down, I’d rather go down with you being the one to do it.”

Michael’s eyes go wide with understanding and then form back into tiny unyielding slits as he pokes you in the chest. “What the fuck, T! That ain’t happenin’! No way, no how!” 

You brush him off but think it’s cute how thick his Midwestern accent gets when he gets flustered. “I wasn’t talking about now, dipshit. I meant at any time in the future.”

“And it _still_ ain’t happenin’, end of fuckin’ story.”

All of this morbid bullshit about your own life has made your throat parched, and you’ve just about forgotten the six-pack getting cold, so you jump up to retrieve it, throwing a few to Michael. “Why?” you laugh jadedly as you twist the cap off one bottle. “Because I’m the only man you can’t bring yourself to kill? Some stupid shit?” Michael’s face turns a brilliant shade of red, and you sputter as you’re taking a big gulp of Moosehead. “Are you fucking serious right now??”

He twists the cap off his own beer and downs quite a bit before grimacing and looking at the label in disgust. “Fuckin’ a, Moosehead? This bullshit? Can’t you get more refined tastes?”

“Don’t change the goddamn subject!” 

He gulps the rest of it quickly and opens the second one while looking down at the grimy carpet, tracing patterns in it with his boot. “I...yeah, I can’t.”

This fucking declaration should warm your heart, but goddammit, it just makes you more miserable. If you want to go out of this world, if you _need_ to go, shouldn’t it be the most gorgeous eyes you’ve ever seen sending you off into the great unknown instead of some random motherfucker? Can’t you at least choose that destiny in life if nothing else?

But you can’t convey these feelings because he’ll never get it. He didn’t come over here for this. He came to get laid. He wants _old happy times_ where he doesn’t have to think about his wife who’s suddenly no longer a joy because she’s become _the dreaded mom_. He wants fun, and you’re not being fun. 

You’re no longer fun. You’re basically being a depressive fucking mother too, just of a different variety. Your kids are in foster. They don’t write back. You find what you need in other forms.

 _Dammit._

“I’m sorry,” you mutter half-heartedly. Gulping down your beer as much as you can without ralphing it back up, you drop to your knees without much of a thought because you aren’t feeling much in the way of physical pain at this point and begin to crawl towards him on the nasty, sticky carpet like a primordial fish slithering on its belly, making its way to home. When you reach the bed, you pull yourself up, trying to seem as sexy as possible, but it probably only feels that way in your mind and actually looks more like Lester trying to shamble out of bed when his legs don’t want to work on the really bad days. “I know you’ve been stalking me all night for a fucking reason, so c’mon baby, get those pants off.”

“You...you _knew_?” Michael scratches his head. “I swear I thought I was careful,” he mumbles to himself.

“Cute,” you cackle and grin as you try to yank him up and out of his Dockers. “You’re as careful as the pull-out method.” He hesitates and chokes, looking sheepish. You raise an eyebrow at him. “What?” Something slowly dawns on you about what you just said. “No,” you draw out.

“They, uh, they don’t teach you many birth control methods in Catholic school, ya know,” he finishes lamely, his cheeks are burning red as if you’ve slapped them. 

“Well, _I’m_ disappointed, Mikey, but I suppose Jesus isn’t because that’s how it works for you guys, right?” You let your words weave around him seductively yet still spitefully while your fingers grasp the zipper, but a hand moves you away. You look up sadly, wondering if _this_ is the one time too many, the time your mouth has carried you too damn far. 

But you’re met with eyes alit with such fiery passion that they’re often a mirror to your own. The tip of his tongue is poking out of his mouth in thought. You glance up at him wordlessly. “No, use your mouth, no hands,” he demands, no smiles now; only the hint of one remaining in the upturned corner of one side of his mouth.

You shrug and oblige. You have nothing better to do now, after all, and at least you know what you are. You’re a broken toy, trash taking up space. He’ll throw you away when he’s done with you. You want to believe it’s different, that you deserve better, but you’re kidding yourself. You’ve never deserved better.

The metallic taste of the zipper is a harsh contrast against your tongue and teeth as you drag it down effortlessly. He grunts in satisfaction as he rushes to get his jeans and boxers off, then hisses in pleasure as you move his cock beyond your lips, making sure to glide along the underside with your tongue just as he likes on your way down. 

Even after all of this time, it doesn’t take much to make him come apart, wailing and sighing like a virgin in your mouth. Is it the heat you carry? Is it the rush of the taboo? Is it just because it’s you? You like to think it’s something that’s all of the above, but you aren’t really sure. 

He still tastes like something akin to the ocean; as big, shiny, and relaxing as what you think it would be like to take a giant drink. 

You’re about to worry over getting yourself off when he stops you with a desperate look in his eyes -- that look you’ve seen before. The same one you saw when you fucked in the car. Those looks where he doesn’t understand why he wants to be filled by you, but he knows he craves it just like you know you need the speed. 

You don’t bother saying anything because this feels like fragile glass that will break and send him scattering back to home if you even mention it, so you reach for the Astroglide that you keep next to the bed and begin to work him gently, listening to him mewl and groan with desire, and holy shit does it do things to you again. It’s like awakening a fucking monster every single time. 

Maybe it’s a bad thing to awaken this monster.

But God, the sounds he makes for you are pure fucking heaven. Especially when you ease yourself in. And from thereon, it’s a hot, electric mess of squeals, yelling, and chanting your name as if by repeating it, he hopes to seal himself to you in some ancient tantric sex act, and it’s fucking hot and absurd at the same time. 

“T...T...I need...I,” he pants miserably, shuffling his head to and fro.

“Yeah, baby, tell me what you need, and I’ll give it to you because it’s you,” you coax smoothly in stark contrast to the way you pound into him as if his ass is a piece of meat you’re tenderizing. Christ, you’ve probably witnessed dogs rutting gentler on a roadside than this, but he feels and sounds so fucking amazing, you can’t help but get lost in the sensation of it all. 

“I...I don’t know…more,” he whines into the pillows. “Harder, faster...fuck, I’m not fragile!”

Shit, this would be so much easier if the pipe were near... _waitaminute_.

You slap his ass and withdraw, and he moans in frustration at the loss of contact. “Hold on, if you want all of that, Mikey. I’m going to need something.” 

The pipe is on the dresser by the TV where it was last discarded, so you reload it and fire it up, taking a few hits. If Mikey wants the fuck of a lifetime, you’re going to give him what he wants, dammit. You'll always give him what he wants.

After a moment, it hits you and you feel like you can plow through a fucking mountainside Jesus Christ and everything feels _so much more_ and oh God look at Mikey’s plump ass that’s so nice to look at and you could just take a fucking bite out of that motherfucker couldn’t you but no wait that’s not the right kind of thinking because we’re here to fuck the shit out of Mikey not eat the shit out of Mikey unless maybe he’d like a bit of this too.

Your mind is going at warp speed when you begin to tongue Michael’s asshole, literally rimming the fuck out of him, and you aren’t really thinking about the gross factor because you’re so far gone, nothing really even matters. All you know is that it’s a part of him, and you want to be a part of him.

“Oh my fucking God, Trevor!” he whimpers hotly. “What the fuck are you doing back there??”

Oh maybe he’s ready for the rest of the festivities so save that for another day and let’s get this shit going and fuck him straight through this goddamn wall and maybe he’ll think again about bitching about wanting more or thinking about fragility or think about fucking leaving again or wait--

_What?_

You’re fucking him so hard he’s literally screaming himself hoarse when you have that last thought and come back to Earth. Oh Jesus fuck, _Jesus Christ_ , you haven’t hurt him, have you?? You’ll never fucking forgive yourself, you’ll fucking kill yourself if--

“Oh GOD!” he shouts in ecstasy, “Trevor, I’m cumming again!” And faintly, you hear, “I fucking _love_ you.”

You weep as you fill his insides. Why, why the fuck does it take you almost killing him, worrying about killing him, to hear those words? 

And you wonder somewhat if he gets off on almost being killed while...oh God, what the fuck have you _done_?? What the fuck are _you_ turning into? What the fuck are you turning _him_ into??

Your bodies lay prone against the bed, completely spent now, and the both of you breathless, trying to get back to normal. You pull the ragged comforter over the both of you and shiver with regret and self-hatred when Michael’s arm pulls you close to him. He places a kiss on your cheek and sleepily murmurs, “Happy New Year, T.”

Sleep doesn’t come at all, really. It’s a mixture of nightmares, lucid dreams, wakefulness, near panicked screaming a few times, lots of movement, and maybe at some point near dawn, there’s blessed relief for a few hours. You swear you hear sounds, but you’re not sure if they’re your dreams, imagination, or movement from the many around you in the motel, rising for the day to leave. 

But when you finally do come to, you realize it’s less warm in bed and more lonely. He’s gone already, back to her. You weren’t imagining things. 

And the broken toy is back in the garbage. Happy New Year, indeed.


	11. The Deep, Deep Pain Of Feeling (Early 1995)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, it's been so long. That's what happens when I have a million stories ongoing, collabs, another fanzine, drawing shit, depression, fucking life, a crashing computer, and a whole slew of things. 
> 
> Now HUGE TRIGGERS AHEAD. THIS IS STARTING TO GET DARK. I think I already mentioned on my Tumblr a while back when I was working on this here and there when I could that Trevor was beginning the downward spiral, and he is. It's the start of a mental breakdown. Hell, I've had a mental breakdown, and I'll be honest, I can understand how Heath Ledger died playing the Joker because this shit puts me right back to some of these times. You can have tons of therapy for this, and it's still never enough. 
> 
> So be prepared, is all I'm saying. We're going down the rabbit hole with Trevor, psychologically. Drug abuse, mental breakdown, animal abuse, self-hate, suicidal thoughts, homicidal thoughts in this chapter. And it's only going to get worse. :( But it isn't all bad, of course. There are still slivers of good, just as you'll see pointed out here. 
> 
> Deep, Deep Feeling is by Paul McCartney. Holy shit, this song is pain.

The start of the new year has become a hurried mix of stacked jobs and sickness with it hitting everyone in one way or another, including you, but you’ve always been stubborn as fuck about remaining in bed too long over _anything_ \-- even painfully conflicting emotions over the people in your life who would just rather blow in and out like an Arctic wind howling through the night only to dissipate by dawn’s first light. No, you can only sit still so much even though Lester shouts at you repeatedly about being a walking contagion, but he does so affectionately, you just keep fucking reminding yourself. 

You and Michael work alongside each other by day, and eventually, you learn how to curb the rush of feelings that come at you every time you hear him say your name softly or find the touch of his fingers sliding against yours, overwhelming sensations coursing through you that you don’t want, maybe never fucking wanted -- OK, that’s maybe too brutal to say, but _fuck_ if you don’t feel it.

He shadows you again, just like fucking New Year’s, trying to catch you alone wherever he can, and you know it’s to talk, and no, _fuck him_ , you don’t want to talk. You just want to take a hit of the pipe in your back pocket and ease away from the pain. Doesn’t he realize it’s too late? All you ever wanted was someone to appreciate you for _you_ , no matter who the fuck you are, because goddamn, you’re too unworthy of love, that’s fucking obvious, and romance...well, what the fuck _is_ that? 

It’s something you know you’ve never had now. 

Blue eyes haunt you no matter where you go. To work, to eat, the bathroom, jerk off, go to bed? It all doesn’t matter anymore because he’s always there, and it’s driving you fucking crazy. You know you’re not paranoid, but goddamn, maybe you are. Maybe you are. 

You want to believe that there’s something in the way that he cares, but it’s just you. You’re fucking delusional, and maybe you always were. The sex was just sex. Everyone just fucking uses you because you let yourself be used, you dumbass fuck. Ma’s little useful helper, after all. 

Hit the pipe, drink up...it’ll feel better if you do. Your chest won’t ache when you breathe, when you think, when you dream. 

One day in the midst of casing a place, you’re very jittery and are aware when someone sits next to you on the bench, bumping their knee next to yours. You don’t even need to look up to know who the fuck it is. “What the hell do you want?”

OK, so that comes out harsher than intended, but what does he expect from you? 

There’s hesitancy in his tone now, and you hate that, hate that everything has become a mishmash of stalls and pauses and half-assed starts between the both of you. Where did it all get screwed up? Did you fuck it up that badly? Dammit, you need another hit to clear your mind, and maybe, just fucking _maybe_ , this will all be easier. 

“You...you wanna get something to eat after?”

You do peer up at his face this time and see the concern etched there but purposefully ignore it, scraping the toe of your boot into the sidewalk in indignation. “What, do you think this is a fucking date or something? I’ve got places to be and people to do.” You damn well don’t have any of that shit, but you tell yourself that isn’t the point. _He_ doesn’t have to know that.

There’s stalling again where several times you watch as his mouth opens and closes, open and closes ever so gently, and a finger raises as he tries to say something but thinks better of it, but then finally he sighs and blurts out, “Look, T, there’s no easy way to say this. You need to eat something.”

Does he care? Does he _really_ care?

Is this just fucking pretending? What is this?

“That’s really great and all, Mike,” his name coming off your tongue in the same way a cat hisses at something, “but I know how to feed myself. I’m not one of the kids. Take care of _them_ , not me.”

He bristles slightly at that, and you know it’s not just because he’s doing this faux-worry shit, but because this has been an issue with Amanda for a long while, how he doesn’t do much actual parenting. He does all the fun _dad_ things but leaves the hard shit for her like actually raising them, and it’s really because he wasn’t cut out for this gig. You know that. Deep down, _he_ knows that, but he’s always been good at baring your flaws while hiding his own shame. 

“I know you’re not one of the -- goddammit, Trevor!” He puts his hand on your thigh, and your eyes drift toward it, consider the warmth radiating from the palm that clinches you in despair, and you remember how it used to wrap around this thigh in other ways not long ago while biting your tongue carelessly till it bleeds a bit because tasting that is a pleasant distraction from the incoming of emotions you feel just from this one damn gesture. “I’m worried, you fucking idiot! Someone has to look after you if you aren’t going to look after yourself!!”

Oh, how imprudent he is with his words, how damn dense he is to his actions, and how you are affected in the process. You chuckle despite yourself. “And that someone would have to be _you_ , right? Poor fucking Trevor has no one besides Michael to save himself from himself. Watch out, someone might think you actually _care_ ,” you retort acidly.

He jumps from the bench so quickly, it startles you, and you can’t recall the last time you’ve seen him move with such speed and grace and wonder momentarily if this is exactly how he looked out on the football field before you find yourself yanked away toward his car. Your ass meets the back seat, and he hovers over you, panting and sweating, with eyes that have become as dark as storms. “Maybe if you didn’t chase everyone away, it wouldn’t be _just_ me -- _did you ever fucking think of that?_ ” he bites out venomously. “But you do. You and the shit you do, that’s the cause of your problems, you dumbass.” 

You both become very conscious of the fact that his hands are on either side of your hair which has become so long now...if he just wanted to reach out and pull it, he could, and that’s all that you can focus on besides his frowning lips which slowly form a soft smile, but you can’t help noting how it doesn’t quite touch his eyes. 

“I _do_ care about you,” he murmurs tenderly into the space between you. “You’re my best friend.”

You shut yourself off from him and turn away. Best friends. In his head, that’s all it ever is, ever was, all it ever _can_ be. He’s not you, and you can’t make him like you no matter how much you try with coaxing or screaming or fucking. He’s always going to run away and hide within himself because that’s what he was trained to do. 

Sharply, you laugh from behind closed lids because that’s where it’s safest right now, “You have one odd fucking way of being a best friend then, Mikey.”

There’s nothing said in return except for heavy breathing, and just as soon as you feel like you can open your eyes again, a tongue is at your neck and then lips, making love to your flesh in the ways you don’t want to be missing so much right now. A whimper escapes from you before you can even hope to stop.

Here he _does_ grasp clumsily at some strands of hair and tugs, whispering frantically in your ear, “I said I fucking care.” He peppers your ear, the spot behind it, the spans of your neck, the jut of your chin, and the tip of your nose with kisses, then gazes at you intensely. “Don’t make me regret it. Ever.”

There’s finality to the way he says that, and it irks you. No, fuck it, it _wounds_ you. It aches deeply inside with familiarity. It reminds you of Ma and her nonsensical need to make you feel like something feeding on cow shit, letting you burn from her words only to receive you in her arms afterward as if she’s rescuing you.

Why do you love people who love controlling you? Are you still expecting to replace the love you can’t find in your family? Couldn’t find in anyone else?

Is it because you know you can’t ever hope to control yourself?

Panic from knowledge fills you with dismay, and it’s like someone has dumped a shroud made from lead on you. If you can’t leave to get a fix, you’re going to wriggle out of your skin. “I need to go,” you fuss. When he makes no move to back up, you shove against him like the terrified animal you feel bucking against the cage inside of you, fingernails drawn and ready to claw if need be. “ _Now_ ,” you add with urgency. 

He stares at you in confusion at first and then pensively after a moment’s pause. “Why, T? What’s so important right now?” And there’s something in the way he mutters those words that’s an understanding, that he knows what you need, so much so that you wonder why the fuck he’s hellbent on keeping you from your intended destination.

You cave in. It’s so goddamn tiring managing these walls on your own, and sometimes you think it would be nice to have someone to lean on like that, but the last time you think there was something close...well, it’s simpler to not dwell on it. 

“I need a smoke, OK?” you seethe against him as the heart inside of you flutters wildly, demanding only to burst. It seems like there are thousands of little maggots burrowing inside of your tissue and organs, gnawing away, and you wish it would just leave you alone. “I need the p-pain to go away. It’s too much.”

His eyes penetrate harder into you than any maggot could ever expect to go, and you’re not sure what the fuck he’s angling for...maybe the truth. It _is_ the truth though, or at least some of it. You _do_ crave that crank, the gratification which it would bring right at this moment, where you could finally begin to feel yourself lose a piece of your mangled emotions in the coils of smoke and watch them drift away in the air, never to be regarded again.

You want to float with them so much, it’s like a delightful twist of a blade in the guts. There’s a devilish hate that breeds inside of you for everybody around, and it fucking scares you, but you also find yourself relaxing into it, wearing it again like a familiar skin you’d forgotten long ago. It draws you away from yourself and numbs these hostile nerve endings better than any goddamn drug can, and you often find yourself moving toward it. How easy it would be to just act again, to do without reason, feel without concern of consequence. But you’re not a fucking child, there is no more endless shuffle of foster families each instance you fuck up. Now it’s just prison or a padded cell. Or even sometimes both.

Maybe it’s where you belong. 

His body shifts aside to let you pass, but his gaze remains steady on you while your shaking hands reach for what they need in your pockets. Fuck him for watching. Why the fuck does he need to watch? Does he get some sick thrill out of seeing you fail?

Wouldn’t be the first one in your life to get off on it, now would it? You told him all those secrets, and sometimes, sometimes you think he just used them against you. 

But another part of you feels like he doesn’t use them enough. You want him to embed the knife as deep as it will slide because it would feel so nice to just let go, and it’s what you both need. There’s something fucking wrong with you, and you realize it, but you can’t stop it. You’re growing more and more incapable of caring about yourself or those around you, but there are more than enough slivers left to recognize that you’re like a rabid animal who should be put down before you snap at someone with foaming jaws. 

And yet you can’t articulate this because there’s also the part of you who denounces him for what you are, for pushing you to this extent. As much as you prefer to be put out of your misery, you also want to deliver retribution to someone who set fire to your heart when all you ever dared to do was try to love. 

What the fuck did it get you? What the fuck did it ever get you, you fucking idiot?

A hand settles on your shoulder, and you jump so much, you skip right over the fact that you aren’t alone while absorbed in your thoughts. 

“Are you OK?” his voice tinkles like fine bells in your ears, and the pain seizes you. You just want to fall back into his arms and erase everything, dammit. You just want to travel back when it was all OK, when it was safe to giggle, to enjoy, to cherish, to meet, to run your fingers through his scalp and bring his face to yours for a quick peck -- to do _any_ of these, and the seething that eludes your mouth...well, you don’t actually care to curb it. “Are you really OK?” he tries again.

“What do you expect, you bastard??” you curse at him and shirk away. “What the fuck do you _think??_ ” 

Your feet carry you before you even know what you’re doing, and Michael’s yelling at you, but your mind is a mixed bag of the pain of feeling. You don’t want to live, you don’t want to die, you don’t want to be around him, you want to sink into his embrace, you want to kill him, you want him to end you. 

You want it all to stay, but you want it to go away. You don’t know what you want. But you know you need to get the fuck away.

The gray mush takes you to a road that sees less use from people due to the lack of homes. There’s one old quarry that’s now-defunct and roped off, having filled up with water ages ago, and the rest belongs to farmland that several farmers own, so there’s nothing but snow, woods, and the occasional cattle, but not far off in the distance is a ramshackle barn that hasn’t seen care put into it in many generations.

Something inside of you is tempted towards it, and you stare, taking in the impressive structural skeleton that is largely intact, but there are many boards hanging haphazardly from the roof...some are on the ground. If you're careful, one could fall and bang you in the head or alternatively, you could step right through a rusty nail and then--

\-- you shrug, not really giving a damn.

You take out your pipe and lighter, then pat yourself down for anything you can light up, but a frantic thought surges through you as you start to recognize that there’s not a goddamn thing left because you exhausted all you had, _you fucking goddamn idiot and fled town to the middle of nowhere, Jesus fucking Christ_. 

So in desperation, with sweaty palms, you bring the pipe to your mouth and try to get any remnants you can with the lighter, but there’s nothing besides a very hollow plastic taste that leaves you more and more pissed by the minute to the point that you wrench yourself off the dirt and mush with an unhappy yell and punch the side of the barn. 

An unholy roar not unlike you on some of your worst days unleashes, and a few boards fall near you, sending you scattering backward. 

You don’t know why, but that pisses you off even further. Fuck this building, fuck this day, fuck this pipe, fuck this town, fuck everything, fuck Michael, and fuck you for being a dumb enough prick to ever develop an emotion beyond rage. 

Yeah, that’s right. Rage is all you’ve ever fucking needed. It served you well with that goddamn hockey coach and that little band geek fucker...it clearly served you well with your fucking father. 

And then an idea slams into you as you study the mess everywhere, noting how some is higher off the slush and not as wet, so you search for dry brush to light, and when you discover something that will work, you drive it into the dryer piles. 

Your mind is transported back to a day not unlike this. Someone else you loved disappointed you and showed you that the emotion was a fucking farce and waste of time. The only thing that remained was rage and hate. Those were revelations -- your revelations. How did you ever let yourself get hooked up in this bullshit again? Goddammit, how can you be so fucking stupid??

Because you both were baptized by fire. That’s why. It meant something to you. You had guessed it meant something to Michael. You swore it did when you sought those seawater eyes, those eyes that put out the blazes that roared in your soul. 

But it never meant anything at all to anyone except you. Ma’s always been right. You’re just too ornery to see the writing on the wall. You’re just like her. Only suitable for what service you can provide, nothing more. Stupid, stupid, _stupid!_

The flames begin to grow brighter and lick heavily at the wood pyre built amongst the broken stacks, and you observe them with idle fascination. Fire was something that became your father when your lousy one disappeared, and it wraps you and feeds you with its warmth you remember so well. 

There’s a sudden painful howling that draws you from your revelry, and something quickly darts out of the bundles, hissing and very obviously burning. It takes you a few minutes to understand that a homeless cat had been living inside, taking refuge from the cold. 

Its lifeless body is found smoldering not far outside of the giant husk of the dilapidated beast which is glowing more and more orange and red as the early evening greets the gloomy sky. You struggle to feel some sorrow for it, but even as you delve deep, you’re all out of tears. Besides, even your unnatural father deserves to be fed, you figure, and it’s been so many years since you cared for him properly. 

You watch him flicker and dance for a moment longer before you realize that this will invite attention, and you don’t have a ride. 

Bending to offer the dinner of the gods back into whence it came, the cat’s seared flesh falls apart into your fingers, piece by horrible piece, and you see the whiteness of bone as you are left with matted fur everywhere, but you pitch it back into the fire, wiping your hand on your pants while grumbling to yourself, “Fucking fuck. Why did there have to be anything in there?”

You get halfway back to the road, and _that’s_ when the tears slide down your cheeks. You’re not even sure why the hell you’re crying now, of all times. Was it the cat? Is it because you’re forced to walk in the cold? Is it the lack of friends? Is it the memories? Is it because you expected Michael to come to you?

Is it all of it?

You’d give anything to feel his touch right now. To hear his voice in your ear. To see his shitty smile. Those gorgeous eyes. 

And you’d give anything to deliver him into that pyre, just like that cat. Feed him to the fire father. Make him understand how much you suffer, how much you’re bleeding inside, how much you’re killing yourself each day just so you can’t feel anything. Does he even know? _Can_ he even know?

Heaving a sob, you wonder how much is even him. How much of it is you slipping...fuck, your mind is such a tangled fucking disarray, and you wish you could go back to a point when you’d never felt at all. 

But then to do that, you’d have to give up Michael, and you aren’t certain you can do that either. 

What the fuck can you do? You’re stuck wishing you’d never come back here, but then you want to despise yourself for ever considering that because when you’re apart too long, you miss him, and that winds up being just as much of a fucked up feeling...yet everything with him seems like mind games, and you don’t need that either. 

You’re plunging into a goddamn watery pit of madness and melancholy called Michael Townley. You’re already close to suffocating several times over. How do you get it to cease?

As you near the streets back into the edge of town, you have to figure out a way to shut yourself off, pre-Michael. Your first mistake was ever allowing yourself to get worked up over someone. People are only useful for a few basic things, and love isn’t one of them.

You flick the lighter on and off, watching the merry little light dance, and you hover your palm over it, letting the heat engulf you. 

First though, you need to take care of getting another fix to lessen the dilemma of the deep, deep pain.


	12. Nobody Loves You When You're Down And Out/ Early Spring 1995

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't take nearly as long because this was already planned in my head; I just needed to work my way to it. As said, the downward spiral has begun. There will still be good times because not all is bad, but a line has been crossed. Trigger warnings ahoy as stated before. Substance abuse, explicit sex, and murder. If this isn't your cup of tea, I'm sorry. It has to be written for a reason. With that said, enjoy. (And my eternal gratitude and love to @becuzmdsaidineededpersonality and @mourn3d for being my sounding boards many days, and to @real-fanta-sea again for letting me fan over you so hard lol. I love you all.)

There’s a dirty mirror in the room’s corner, and it torments you with its presence. 

How long has it been since you had a proper look at yourself, like really inspected everything through the griminess to determine if you’re still _you_ underneath all of it? Under the sagging sallow skin, the sharpness of bones, the thinning of hair, the dark-lidded eyes.

You’re frightened by what the glass will show you, and because of that, you cracked it weeks before.

Fuck it all...do you really need to see what you look like when you wake and bake, guzzle a forty ounce, or load a rock into your pipe? Your eyes work just fine, and you only need to see what’s in front of your face, anyhow. 

You’re pretty sure blue eyes will be there waiting to find you if your feet even think about venturing over, so you don’t dare. 

It’s absurd to you how much he invades your mind now that you try so hard not to think about him, and to his credit, he’s given up. The shadowy figures no longer trail behind you as you go to the market, to the liquor store, to your friendly -- or _not,_ as that’s still debatable -- neighborhood dealer’s trailer...and that part cuts deep. You never meant as much as you hoped you did, and man, that fucking stings. 

You roll the pipe in your fingers. It would be so simple to shift all the blame onto this one source, but you know that it can’t bear the soul responsibility. As long as you’ve lived, no one has been able to handle you as you are. There’s something functionally wrong with you, and it’s the reason you’ve often thought you’d be better off at the business end of a bullet -- not as an act of self-pity but of one last reflection of servitude to others. If you’re _this_ now, how much worse will it be in ten, even twenty years? What can you become?

Isn’t it better to think of others?

But every time you carry it to that place, bitterness grips your self-centered heart, and you wonder why the fuck _you_ have to think about these kinds of sacrifices. Why the fuck does it have to be _you_ every single time, doing the heavy lifting? When do _you_ get to choose the joyous ending?

It doesn’t get to be that straightforward though, so you have to make your own way as you always have. 

You forsake the grass and melt down the leftover chunk of rock you have, waiting numbly as the euphoria hits your system, and it’s like you’re just instantly aware and can feel your lungs expand whereas before you’d overlooked the process on how to do that. 

Everything takes too much effort, but your body is also proceeding at a sluggish warp speed. The room bends and reverberates around you when you stand to dress. You’re not exactly sure what you’re even doing, but your brain is forming connections, convincing you that there’s something you need to do if you’re absolutely sincere about this. 

No regrets. Die with no regrets. 

How has it become _so fucking hard_ to get your goddamn leg into these pants -- oh, maybe it’s because this is a shirt you’re trying to put them through. Jesus, fuck it, will anyone notice? You’re just going for a quick drive to see what action is up. There’s an itch to scratch deep in your gut. Who cares, c’mon, grab your keys and go, who fucking cares.

Your top half is your denim coat with sheep’s wool trim, and thank fuck for that because your pants are still composed of your legs through your shirt and tied around your abdomen, precariously looking like those old MC Hammer fashion pants which brings a peculiar giggle to your throat as you turn the ignition and shift into gear. But it’s still cold as fuck outside even as you’re heading into spring, and why wouldn’t it be as you move full-steam ahead? Shit, everything’s cold here, just as frigid as -- 

_NO_. No. No, don’t think about that. Don’t think, don’t _think_ , it’s all in the past, just work, just a running partner, ancient history. 

He isn’t though. Michael hasn’t really stopped trying. Quit trying to delude yourself, you fucking liar. You just move the opposite direction every time he strikes up a conversation, suggests that he’s managed to iron out things with Amanda, that the children are growing bigger, Tracey misses her Uncle T, and goddamn, he _always_ knows just how much to bury the fucking knife and twist it till you’re in exquisite agony, but no, _not_ this time. Fuck him. 

God, you wish you could. You wish he would. You want to get past this. New Year’s Eve haunts you like a vast wound that will never heal properly. You both aren’t normal, and there’s nothing _right_ about this dance you do with each other, or these steps you take with disregard for the rhythm, where you both want to die from each other’s hand. 

You just choose to disappear, to end the world of your presence. One less prick to fret over.

Michael gets off on the notion of death.

You’re so fucking miserable. Did you do it to him or did he do it to you or did you both always exist with this condition and just come together because it was meant to be this way? 

You’ll forever be asking yourself that, you think.

Driving down the end of Fourth and Logan, you notice a few people milling around. This is the place where the freaks of the night for Granville come to hang out and party as they always have, some just looking for fun and some dope, and others looking for some cash. You’ve been here a few times in the past for head from anyone who’ll offer, and you’ve fucked a few women but have always had to pay for those pity fucks, it seems. At least the guys have always been nicer about wanting a mutual exchange. Everyone uses someone, and at least you both get something out of the deal. 

You pull up casually, scanning the walkway for anyone who’s alone because people who attract friends or attention have always bothered you. That’s what drew you to Michael originally, his penchant for keeping to himself even if he was a sort of social butterfly because of his ability to charm the shit right out of anyone’s asshole. However, somewhere along the lines, Amanda coaxed him out of that darker shell of his and into something that wasn’t as familiar to you. He became Mr. Future PTO Family Man while you were gone, and there are only pieces of the real him that remain for you to slide your tongue into at night. It isn’t fair. 

It was supposed to be you. It was always supposed to be _you_. 

Among the stream of bodies, there’s a parting of souls, and one calls out to you. There’s a face you see that’s essentially like being transported back into another life when there was nothing more than a flare gun and cargo between two sets of living eyes boring into one another. 

Is this fucking real?

You study his movements as he trudges along with everyone but also apart, as if he can’t make up his mind if he wants to be here or not. He looks out and catches your gaze on him, so you shyly glance away. God, he’s as fucking godlike as you remember. Why has he always been so goddamn beautiful while you’re nothing but scum on the underside of his boot?

When you twist to look again, he’s gone, and a desolate sigh escapes your lips before you can stop it. Dreams, so many fucking dreams, you’ve become sick of them all. It’s time to move on. 

As you go to shift out of park, there’s a rapping at the passenger side window, startling the hell out of you. Who the fuck?

The door opens gradually, and it’s _him_. Jesus Christ, it’s really a dream. You’ve smoked so much ice, you’ve blown your mind up permanently. He smiles cheerfully and extends his left hand toward you, and you tremble as you palm it in yours, bringing it up against your face, letting your tears fall gently onto your combined fingers. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” you stammer guiltily, feeling so damn stupid for having ever pushed him away. “I’m sorry for crying, but it’s...it’s all I’ve got left, man. The pain is all I have left to give you.”

He gawks at you cockeyed. “I think maybe you have me confused for --”

Of course he’d try to scurry off again as soon as you showed any goddamn emotion. Fuck, if you could gut them all out, you would. You don’t recognize what you are anymore besides burning hot violence and this relentless sadness that feels like it’ll kill you. God, you wish it would.

“Don’t leave me again. Please don’t leave,” you whisper miserably, gripping onto his hand for comfort even though you can feel it shaking. Why the fuck is he so afraid of you? You’ve never hurt him, you’d never _dare_ to fucking injure him, dammit. New Year’s was too much, way too much. That shit is not you. “I just don’t want to be alone anymore.”

He giggles lightly, relaxing. “Yeah, I know what you mean.” And his hand stops shaking and holds yours back. “I’m tired of running away from myself.”

Is this the moment you’ve been awaiting? Do you finally get to have it here in these dreams your mind has created for you? 

You clasp his hand in the both of yours and kiss them, murmuring against the cool skin, “Why, sugar? You never needed to run from yourself, you know that. We can always run together. I’d go anywhere with you if you’d only ask me to.”

He appears surprised and then leans back against the seat, facing out at the night sky contemplatively. “Well, I mean...if you want to put it that way, why don’t we go back to your place? That would be the simplest, right?” He withdraws his hand from yours and sticks it back in his lap, sounding anxious again.

Something isn’t right here, and it keeps niggling at the base of your brain, but you can’t figure it out. Everything is too fuzzy, too simple and too fast, and you just want to get back to where it’s warm and safe. Since your hand is available, you do something productive with it and light up the pipe, taking a long hit. 

“Uh, do...do you mind?”

Oh shit, he always hates this... _wait_ , in your memories, did he hate it then? Did you even smoke it? Maybe your mind has fucked everything up now. “Fuck, I’m sorry, I keep forgetting--”

“Can I get a hit?” he urges a little louder this time, more emphatically.

OK, you’ve fucking definitely lost it, gone 51/50, call out the paddy wagon because your mind has manufactured you a goddamn Michael that is everything you ever craved.

You hand over your lighter and pipe and eye him as he lights up expertly, letting the effects of the hit roll in his system for a good long minute before exhaling and going again. Eventually, he hands it back over and cracks a grin. “Damn, that’s good shit. Thanks.”

What the fuck do you say to _that?_ “I’m so goddamn hard right now.” Well, that wasn’t at the top of your choices, but what the fuck, roll with it anyway. Balls to the wall, motherfuckers. 

His hand skims over your right thigh and then notices your pants-less predicament. “Is...is this your _shirt??_ ” He laughs loudly, and from the corner of your eye, you peek, not even mad because it’s been so very long since he was this carefree and so much like himself. Before he was ruined by life. “What the hell happened to your pants?”

“That’s right, yuck it up, eh?” But you chuckle too. “I was in a rush, fuck me.”

His hand grazes your groin again, and he regards you coquettishly, batting his eyelashes. “I will if you want me to. Or I mean, you know. It’s all on the table.” There is lazy stroking on the inner side of your leg that moves toward your nuts, and fucking hell, he’s always been such a damn cocktease. “You’re cute this way.”

You blush furiously as he catches you off-guard, something he’s invariably been so good at. You turn into the parking lot of the motel and shutter to a halt. “Dammit, Mikey! Can’t even let me get us out of this car before putting your paws all over me, for fuck’s sake!” you babble nervously as you tug the handle for the door open. 

“Oh, so we’re doing that, huh? Well, I’ll let you call me that, but it’ll cost you extra,” he utters cheekily with a twinkle in his eyes. 

What the fuck? _Let_ you call him that? He’d better let you call him anything you fucking want after all he’s put you through. “Exactly _how_ much extra, Mikey?” you ask warily while flinging open the door to your unhappy shithole. 

He prances into the room and hops onto the loudly creaking and protesting bed, not unlike a cracked-out kid. The last time he had been this energetic...fuck, it’s been a few years. Definitely no Amanda on the horizon. 

“You got any more of that good shit? Or anything else? I’m game,” he grins mirthfully while peeling off his coat and flannel shirt. 

Oh God, he’s so fucking beautiful. Your fist goes to your mouth, and you chew down so hard, you draw blood. You know this is just a fucking dream to placate yourself, the horniness, the lack of everything, and the overwhelming need to be intimate with Michael, naturally, but it’s practically more than you can bear. You wish you could will it away. 

“Dammit, Trevor, get it together,” you chastise yourself. What bad will come from a little daydream?

“No, Trevor, don’t listen to yourself,” he reprimands playfully while patting the bed. “Come here and let me warm you up. You look so cold, baby.”

See, even Mikey says you shouldn’t listen to yourself. When has he ever been wrong? 

You grab a bottle of Canadian Mist from the top of the burrow by the TV and leisurely make your way to him, observing him thoughtfully as he gazes back at you with curious eyes. You toss him the bourbon. “Sorry there’s no Jameson around here, but fucking Canada will have to cut it today, eh?” He nods, a little bewildered, while you kick off your mangled boots you can’t bother to replace, your socks missing several toes, and you try to strip out of your long sleeve thermal shirt-that-became-pants by doing a sensuous dance for him, but you fall flat on your ass.

The both of you stare at each other for a minute before bursting into glee. 

“God, Mikey, I’m a wreck without you. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m thinking,” you confide against better judgment. “I...I can’t do this on my own, it’s always been you and me.” The sobs and hiccups come out as he keeps a sort of vigil on you from the corner of his eye while helping himself to a decent-sized swig of the whiskey. You wet and snot into the sleeves of your freshly wrenched shirt, glaring dejectedly at the floor. “I only ever wanted it to be us, but I never could make you understand that, and it’s too fucking late.”

He opens his arms to you, looking like some patron saint of wantonness beckoning you to come hither. “It’s OK, Trevor. C’mere.”

You push off the sticky rug and go careening gratefully into his awaiting arms, slipping blessedly into them and against him. A happy sigh leaves you before you can catch it, but he embraces you and seems to pay it no mind. God, as you finally relax into him, you wish he were like this more often or that all of your fantasies were this good. You could pass happily this way, swathed in his caring arms, and it’s all you ever desired once upon a time, but this sick revelry will have to make due.

“Why can’t we remain this way? Why did you have to go screw shit up?” You complain against the heated skin of his belly. “You don’t understand how you make me feel, Michael.”

He hugs you tighter to him and takes another long swallow. “I’m sorry, Trevor. I truly am.”

You start to jerk away from him because all of his excuses are usually bullshit, but there’s something in there in the blue of his irises that maintains that this is sincere this time around. There’s an understanding, and you tug him to you, inhaling him. “You...you really _are_ sorry, Mike. I can see it this time.” The tears slide down your cheeks into the crux of his lap, burning as they flow. 

He nudges you in the shoulder, so you turn to peek up at him. The light of the room covers his radiant head like a halo, but his eyes tell a different narrative. “Here, open up your mouth.” Then he drinks from the whiskey and moves toward you, guiding his mouth to yours...and goddamn stars glitter and explode behind your closed lids. He’s never been this emboldened in the past, and OK, it’s perplexing, but it’s turning you the fuck on with what he’s doing with his tongue as you ease the whiskey down, so the confusion slips to the back of your head. 

Panting, you remember he’d wanted to party, and you may not have coke, but you’ve got molly, and he was never bitchy about that before Mandy rolled into town, “Hey, uh, I’ve got some of the good ol’ fun time shit on me if you _really_ have some fun while fucking.”

An eyebrow raises, and his tongue darts out to lick his lips. “Oh yeah, baby. Now you’re talking!”

You reach for your coat and pilfer through the pockets for the little clear packet containing two doses of orange Q-dances, knowing these will carry you for a while as if you aren’t seeing the underside of thirty. Then you heft yourself back up onto the bed, devour one for yourself, but the other one is still sitting in your palm, and you want to do something, something you’ve dreamed about before but could never dare to do because Mikey, for all of his bullshit, was still too straightlaced to just let go.

He waits on you with his tongue out, and you throw all caution to the wind, shoving it in your mouth before delivering it to him. 

The moans that come from him are the most erotic music you’ve ever heard, and the wriggling movements you make with your tongues along with the clashing of teeth have you huffing at the end of it all, beseeching him with sparkling hazel eyes, pleading with a desirous thirst that must be quenched, “Please, Mikey...I need you so much it hurts.”

“Right, right,” he breathes out, and you feel him dip off the bed and hear him meander around. Washing up? He always was a clean fucker.

As you prostrate on the bed, gripping the blankets, you hear him hunting through drawers for something to the point you become exasperated and whine, “What the hell is taking so long? I need you _now!_ ”

“Just looking for some lube and, uh, you know,” he mumbles to himself as he continues to search.

He assumes you’re _dirty_. He sluts around the entire goddamn universe, but he considers _you_ the one with a fucking disease. 

“Are you fucking _kidding_ me right now?? You ho around a tri-county area -- probably more -- and you’re concerned about _your pecker??_ ” You bounce the mattress as you pound your fists into it and shout hoarsely, “We’re going to rawdog this shit because I’m fit as a fucking fiddle, thanks to you, and I don’t _need_ any goddamn lube. We’ll use my tears and pain as lube.”

He shrinks back from you, and you wonder when the fuck that started to happen. Does your mind hate you that much? He should yell right back at you, instruct you to shut the fuck up, and slam his dick right through to your esophagus, but he looks uncertain and keeps eyeing his clothes and the exit. 

Your mind hates you so much it would choose to have him be afraid of you, forsake you, and let you believe that. Christ. 

You give a long ragged sigh, trying not to cry again out of fear that will send him away. “I’m sorry, Mikey. I...I just...It’s OK. It’s only ever been you, you know that.” You whisper brokenly into the sheets, “It can only be you like that. You’re the only one I’ll ever love.”

He advances toward you, first like a skittish rabbit, but eventually hurls himself onto you and latches onto your back for dear life, murmuring tenderly into your ear, “I’m so, so sorry, Trevor.” And you feel the spatter of wetness on you as he hoists himself back up and withdraws behind you, and in this saddened haze, you notice something you’ve never felt, not from the likes of him because it’s considered beneath him, but goddamn, the mush of a tongue into your backside plying you apart and licking carefully has you wailing and squealing in unique ways. Was this what set him off? You can feel that side of you, the one you don’t tap into much because it’s not considered _normal_ , but you can feel the delicate femininity of it as he eats you out, and you sob gently, thinking you can get off from that solely.

“Jesus, Michael, stop...J’ai besoin de toi en moi (I need you inside of me),” you ramble, knowing that half of the time he can’t read you, but it’s never been a hindrance before. 

You lose that tremendous wet warmth toying with you as he silky responds, “Mais tu as un goût délicieux (But you taste delicious).” Then he fondles his lips so excruciatingly slow as you can’t stop ogling him. When the fuck did he learn French?

But it’s just a daydream, a silly fucking dream. Just roll with it, Trevor. 

He arranges himself behind you and glides in softer than you’ve ever remembered, so he must’ve really loosened you up or your mind can’t even get girth and size right at this point, and that notion forms tears again, threatening to spill, but you suck it up. It’s your fault. He _told_ you how he preferred this, and it’s your price to pay now, you lonely fuck.

Has he...has it _ever_ been this elegant? This is...you really _are_ going insane. This must be what making love is like because you can’t even recall very many gentle fuckings of yesteryear. Everything has always been frenzied and passionate, like Michael’s chasing something only he understands, but he’s going to bring you along with him just because he can. You’ve always wondered if it’s how he played football as a quarterback. You’ve often felt like the pigskin in his grip. 

It grates on your nerves, and you don’t know why. _Why_ is he being polite now? Why after all this time? 

“Come _on_ , Mikey,” you bitch and bounce your ass off him roughly to send the point home. “Fuck me right into this wall for old time’s sake. Tell me how much you hate me.”

A hand reaches around to stroke your midsection, and he whispers faintly, “Maybe the issue is no one’s told you that you’re worth loving. Maybe there’s been too many hateful fuckings before this.”

Why the _fuck_ is he acting this way? Why is your _mind_ doing this to you?? Goddamn, wouldn’t it be simpler to eat a bullet than to travel down this rabbit hole???

“ _No!!_ You don’t get to say that to me when you rush back to Amanda every goddamn time! I’m not worth anything!” you howl into the mattress, going through all the familiar old stains of your past now here in this moment of atonement. “I’ve never been worth anything to anyone!”

He pauses and pulls out, glowering at you, and you think you see that expression in him from New Year’s, that same old haunting face, the one where he needs you to fuck him into literal oblivion because he loathes everything including himself, and he doesn’t have the balls to do it. God, it troubles you so much. Why can’t you just _fix_ him?

“It’s OK, Mikey. I’ll get what I need another time like always. Got to give you what you crave, right?” you coo at him as you inch toward him on the bed. 

“No, no,” he says shyly, “I...I’m sure--”

“Nah,” you brush him off, waving your hand and then seizing his cock in it, engulfing him without even hesitating to think about the idea of where it had just been because you _know_ you, and you know where _you’ve_ been, so that’s decent enough anyway, you think. You break for a mouthful of air. “Got to pay the king his dues.” Then you work down again, and he chokes and relaxes, clinging to your hair. Ah, yeah. This is what you desire. 

“Goddamn, that feels really nice.”

A giggle escapes you. “Well, you would know. I mean, once a pro, always a pro.”

There’s a flinch in his actions, but you excuse it away, reasoning that your mind put it there because modern Michael doesn’t like to reflect on the shady shit he has to do to put food on the table. That’s businessman Michael who’s left at Lester’s doorstep. Or at Trevor’s bedside.

“Come on, sugar, on your back. I know the way you like it,” you cajole, and he obliges. Your mouth is feeling like you inhaled a thousand cotton balls so you decide to make your way to the mini-fridge and snag some beer. “Sorry it’s Moosehead again.” He shrugs and guzzles it down, and you shake your head in wonderment at the absurd way dreams work. Usually, he’d be well on his way to busting your chops over your shitty tastes in booze and your need for refinement. After you drain yours, you scout for your pipe and pop your last remaining small rock in it, taking a long drag and letting it roll around in your head until the remnants sift out your nostrils and the slight space between your lips. 

And everything shifts around you vigorously, the lights are too cruel and sharp, the shadows are too grisly and dingy. There’s a ticking you can determine, but it’s not coming from any clock because the one on the wall has long since been dead, and you know it’s got to be your heart, your heart or his as you approach him with your tongue gliding along your teeth. 

Oh God, you wish to savor him, you want to do to him what he did to you in so many ways, force him to scream over you, so you sink between his legs and nibble at his core, alternating between rapid flicks and long languid caresses of your tongue, and he is blubbering like a baby. 

“That’s right,” you say between tastes, “fall apart for me, Mikey. I know all of your little secrets.”

You press your tongue deep inside and appreciate that bittersweetness you recognize is there, that’s stuffed with him, and you groan in ecstasy as you prepare to fuck him with just your tongue and tune in to his distracted whimpers.

“Oh God, oh God stop!” he exclaims all of the sudden, then shrieks heartily, ruffling a hand through his short dark hair. “Let’s get to the good stuff, man.”

“If you insist,” you smirk wickedly and then yank his hips toward you, plunging yourself into him without a second thought because he’s always loved the discomfort, but this time, he screeches out at the intrusion, and you’re not sure why, but he doesn’t miss a beat even though he grimaces and smiles back at you strangely. 

You feel like you’ve just hurt him, and something in you hints that can’t be correct, but you move it aside as you concentrate on how good and tight he feels around you, how nice and warm he is as you angle for his prostate just to listen to him perform those noises that you love so much. 

The desperation in his eyes is there, the agony you know so well, the kind that was there on New Year’s begging you to fuck him into literal death, and you speed up because somewhere deep inside of you, you demand it now too. You just want him to be pleased with you and would do anything he requires. 

Your thrusts speed up, and your hand grasps his cock to match your rhythm. His head is banging into the wall so much, it’s a miracle someone hasn’t yelled or pounded on the wall yet, but even if they did, you aren’t certain you would fucking care at this point because fuck everyone else in the entirety of existence, it’s just you two, and that’s all you ever desired it to be as you descend in and out of this place that ignites your icy heart so you can feel joy again. 

“God, Mikey, why can’t you just love me like I love you??” You notice the pain clench again as you’re nearing the breaking point. Ejaculation has consistently been a fucking mess, bringing the rawest of emotions to the forefront, and you’re on the verge of a monstrous revelation already. “I’ll never stop loving you,” you sob into his chest as you gather him in your arms. “I can’t. You belong to me, not her. To me! You _promised_ to stay with me first!”

He studies you with fearful eyes and opens his mouth, but nothing falls out.

“Why the fuck won’t you _love_ me, you asshole?!” you scream into his face and shake his shoulders. 

He’s running away from you again, Trevor. Whether it’s by death or through Amanda, he runs away from you. You’re the shit on his shoe.

Tears fall onto his breast as you open the nightstand drawer and fish out your Bowie knife. When he sees the sheen of the blade, he starts to jerk from underneath you, and that’s goddamn confusing because normally this wouldn’t be a problem, you think, so you shush him lightly with your fingers. “You showed me on New Year’s a whole other side of you, so maybe...maybe we can flirt with that again.” You hiccup and grunt. “I mean, I liked it, that darker side of you. I always knew it was there hidden from view, and you just pretend to be this goddamn saint walking amongst the rest of us.”

“I...I...w-what do you want me to say?” he sputters, staring at you like a deer in the headlights. “I’ll...I mean I’ll tell you l love you, Trevor, if...if that’s w-what you want--”

_NO._

Boiling rage eats through you, settling in your gut. He’d _dare_ to say that after all this time, _mock_ you with that shit?? How _could_ he??

You strike him in the face without even so much as a thought. “How the _hell_ can you claim that, Michael?! I don’t want flippant bullshit! I _need_ you to mean the goddamn words, you asshole!” you spit out forcefully. “Do you understand how much suffering I have been through because of _you??_ How much I hurt _every fucking day_ when all I want to do is to be in your goddamn arms? To hear your voice? To talk to you? To just see you for one fucking moment of time?? No, I’m sure it _never_ crosses your fucking repressed mind, you self-centered _prick!_ ”

“I just want to go home!” he hollers at the ceiling. “This was just supposed to be a call!” 

“Oh _sure_ ,” you roar at him, “so you can fuck off back to ol’ fake tits because she looks good in a dress!” Your vision is clouded over with so many slimy tears now. “Fuck you, Michael Townley! I’ll give you something you _really_ want!!”

And before you realize it, you’re drawing the Bowie knife back with your right arm and then slicing through his flesh over and over again like you’re cutting through nothing more than hot butter, not even giving a thought to accidentally carving yourself up like a Thanksgiving turkey, and there’s so much blood, skin, and tissue _everywhere_. 

Why...why were you doing this again? _Oh, Jesus Christ_ ….

“Oh God, Michael, oh _fuck_ ,” you panic, pulling out quickly and grabbing the sheets to apply pressure. “I need to--” You try to say you need to call Lester, but his hand weakly bats at yours, and glassy eyes lazily gaze at you.

“Name...my name,” he gurgles, “ _isn’t_ Michael.” 

Then his eyes shut. As his chest collapses, you recognize it’s permanently. Oh Jesus _fucking_ Christ, what the fuck did you do. What the goddamn _fuck_. 

It wasn’t a dream. He wasn’t Michael. He...he...you... _did_ you know?

You’re numb, so very numb and cold as the body on your bed is becoming as you dial Lester’s number and explain that you need his help with a cleaning crew, listen to him yell at you about killing a goddamn hooker -- one that’s practically a kid at that -- and as you find the kid’s ID, blinking at the fact that his name was very much _not_ Michael, your mind is also starting to notice the differences between him and _your_ Michael. 

“I’m going fucking crazy,” you breathe out.

Lester chuckles impatiently on the other end. “Well, that much is obvious. What the hell is it?”

“I...I thought it was all a dream, Les,” you admit uneasily. “I thought he was Michael.”

There’s a long pause in the line before he finally coughs. “You...you mean to tell me, uh, you’re seriously telling me right now that you thought you were killing Michael?”

You don’t know what to say. What _can_ you say to that? 

“Trevor.”

“Lester?”

“You _need_ to get your shit together. Someone will be there within the hour.” 

Tears slide down your face, and you swear there was no more with which to cry. “Please don’t tell Michael.” 

But he’s already gone, leaving you with the disconnect dial tone buzzing in your ears, driving you madder. 


End file.
